Sermon for 7th Sunday after Trinity (18th July 2021). Readings: Jeremiah 23, 1-6; Ephesians 2 11-22; Mark 6, 30-24, 53-end)
Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens
Due to holidays there will be no pre-recorded or printed sermon issued for the following two Sundays (25th July and 1st August)
Through the prophecy of Jeremiah God has a sound and stern warning about shepherds who scatter the flock. In real life, of course, it is the shepherd’s primary role to gather, to protect, and to care for the flock. In this prophecy there is a direct attack on those spiritual leaders who scatter God’s flock instead of fulfilling the proper functions of the shepherd, the pastor of God’s people.
Division versus unity – a real challenge for humans and for spiritual leaders. Religion so often divides people, nations, families.
This is tackled head on by Paul in the letter to the Ephesians, a city with its temple to the goddess Artemis, and the whole pantheon of gods and goddesses that abounded in the Graeco-Roman world. This contrasts sharply with the monotheism of the religion that had nurtured and formed St. Paul’s life. Judaism stood out as distinctive in the ancient world because of its claims that there is one God, and that the commonwealth of Israel should ‘Love the Lord your God with all your hearts, with all your mind and with all your strength.’
But something has changed in Paul. The focus of his faith in God is now centred on the cross of Jesus Christ, and though not departing from his monotheism, his God is fully revealed in and through Jesus.
This revelation has also revealed what Paul sees as a fault in what he previously believed. Division, not unity, was promoted by his religion. He tackles this eloquently in the passage we have heard this morning, and his language is interesting. We might call his language ‘Paul’s polity through the cross’ or who we are as a people together because Jesus died for us.
For a start Paul raises the issue of circumcision. Since the time of Moses Paul’s faith had always practiced male circumcision, and that act in itself was a sign of the relationship with God. It was an outward sign of the covenant between God and his people.
Jesus, being born into this community of faith was circumcised, of course, on the 8th day after his birth. We are told this in scripture. (Luke 2, 21). His followers were in the majority Jewish as well, thus the men were all circumcised.
After the death and resurrection of Jesus the new community that emerged had a dilemma – a dilemma exaggerated by Paul’s missionary journeys, talking about Jesus all around nations of the Mediterranean, and addressing non-Jews and diaspora Jews equally.
The problem was that there were then circumcised and non-circumcised followers of Jesus, and there was deep disagreement about this. In the letter Paul wrote to the Galatians we see his fury vented on those circumcised Christians who became a disruptive influence on the community, undoing all the theological and pastoral work Paul had contributed in building up the common body of the church. It was the first big primitive division in Christian history.
In addressing the Ephesian Christians, Paul is using his inherited tradition in more persuasive ways. He is, it would seem, addressing non -Jews, that is the gentile, or uncircumcised Christian believers. He speaks of the division in the past between Jew and gentile, and how in Christ Jesus in place of division there is unity, and that traditions created by humans are trumped by the work of Christ on the cross.
The language of Paul’s polity that runs through this passage is interesting – especially as he contrasts one group against another:
Aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenant of promise,
Once far off now brought near; both groups into one; broken down the dividing wall;
Abolished the law, creating one new humanity in place of two; no longer strangers or aliens, but citizens, saints, members of the household; growing into a holy temple of the Lord.
Paul is placing before the Ephesians a new vision, a vision of a free citizenship of a new kingdom with all its rights and responsibilities in Christ.
This is a stark contrast to the shepherds decried in the prophecy of Jeremiah. Paul’s clear message is that in Christ there is a Good Shepherd who is a gatherer, a unifier, an inclusive and embracing Christ – and life in his commonwealth knows nothing of male and female, slave or free, Jew or gentile, for all are one in Christ.
Paul’s clear message about life united through Christ is a message much needed at this time. The pandemic has not only created a health havoc world-wide, but we can sense that there is a deeper dis-ease between the nations of the world, and dis-order within society. The world seems a more fragile and fractured place – whether it is ethnic cleansing in parts of China, or the re-emergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, or the division that is a growing phenomenon, and potentially deeply divisive in every society -the vaccinated and the un-vaccinated; or even the type of dis-order that was witnessed last Sunday when England and Italy played at Wembley with scenes of unruly behaviour, Italians being beaten up, police injuries, disregard for COVID regulations. Perhaps worst of all, the barrage of racial abuse sent on social media to the three black England players who missed their penalty shots. An ‘ugliness’ seems to be emerging in parts of society and in the economy of world order.
Ephesians offers an alternative message of hope in Christ, and a very deep challenge to all those who profess his name – for us the language of alien and foreigner is ‘anathema’ for we are fellow citizens (συμπολίτες) proclaiming peace to those who are for off and peace to those who are near.
When Jesus sees the crowd at Gennesaret he has compassion for them from ‘deep in his gut’ the Greek verb indicates, because they appear to be like sheep without a shepherd. As a gatherer-shepherd, a protector-shepherd, a caring shepherd, he heals and restores all to good health. We turn to Christ now as the source of healing, for our common good, and for our individual and social well-being, for we are, as St. Paul emphasizes, fellow citizens in Christ’s commonwealth.
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