Sermon for the 15th Sunday after Trinity – 12th September 2021: Is 50, 4-9; James 3, 1-12; Mark 8, 27-end.

Fr Leonard Doolan, St Paul’s Athens

 

Just around the coastline from the town of Capernaum there is a little beach – a bit stony rather than sandy, but lovely. I remember my first visit to that beach back in the 1990s for three reasons.

The first is that in between all the beautifully coloured stones on the wet beach there were little seedlings growing. Seedlings of palm trees; for a Scottish born boy this was a rather exotic thing to find growing wild, as it were. Along with a fellow pilgrim and good friend we carefully uprooted a couple of the seedlings and bagged them in sealed bags. Our friend had a conservatory so she agreed to bring the seedlings on, one would be for her, the other for me.

It didn’t work out because the seedlings grew to such a size that it became impossible to transfer them and they now make a very handsome decoration to their conservatory in the East of England.

I know what you are thinking. It is illegal to smuggle seedlings of plants from one country to another. I can remember how anxious we felt as we successfully got the seedlings through airport controls – especially as another friend had packed some boxes of dates in his suitcase, and the security people thought the stones in the dates were showing up on the X-ray machine as bullets!

The second reason I remember this little beach was because it was the first time I had ever seen a hyrax. Some of you might know what this is. It is in fact a mammal that inhabits the areas around the Sea of Galilee. I suppose it is the size of a large rabbit, but is more the shape of a guinea-pig. They are quite timid, so it wasn’t possible to get too near them. I later saw more of them at Capernaum. The extraordinary thing is that the hyrax is not related to any other small or medium sized mammal, but in fact is related scientifically to the elephant. How is that possible, I can hear you asking? I don’t know, but it shows you how wonderful and complex genetics can be.

There’s a third reason why this little beach is so memorable – what is it? Ah, yes. This is where traditionally St. Peter acclaims Jesus as the Messiah. I knew there was some really important fact I should share with you!

In St. Mark’s narrative, immediately before the episode we hear in today’s gospel, there are healings, miracles, teaching with divine wisdom all of which would satisfy those who were thirsting to see such things. The sick are healed; storms are calmed; thousands are fed from a few provisions, some bread and fish. It is all populist stuff – the type of populist thing, I suppose, that so many of our present day political leaders would  like to offer. No one wants to follow a politician who says the way ahead will bring hardship, poverty, hunger, unemployment, sacrifice – nor death on a cross, for that matter.

The disciples of Jesus have just seen, day after day, wonderful things happening. So on this little beach on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus challenges them. ‘Who do people say that I am?’

Some respond with the names of past heroes – great figures in the Jewish religious tradition. It is Peter who hits the nail on the head. ‘You are the Messiah’. Peter gets it right.

Getting the right word, or the right words is so important – it is the right words in either doctrine or worship that keeps us rooted in orthodox Christian belief (orthodox in this case is with a small ‘o’). Words either guide us in the right direction or throw us off on the wrong path. Words can gather or they can scatter; they can injure or heal; they can fully express our inherited and ancient beliefs, or they can they can mean so little that there is no true Christian doctrine left, just rather vague notions about some higher being, with no definition and no personal commitment demanded of us.

Just this week Greece has said farewell to one of its great musicians, lyricists, song writers, Mikis Theodorakis. His Hellenic lyrics are legendary and part of Greek folk lore. He was a lifelong communist, and he lived a very long life – and his politics may have been divisive, but his contribution through music and lyrics was able to bring a nation together, and now a nation together in mourning. How we use words is so important, and they have an impact.

The writer of the letter of James gets this absolutely right. Using an image that is still very current in the Greek mind and society, the author speaks of forest blazes being started off with small fires. Almost amusingly, if it were not so serious, he goes on to say that the tongue is a fire, and by it whole conflagrations result. The whole Christian community can be engulfed in the flames of an uncontrollable tongue. This picks up in a vivid way the simple statement in the Book of Ecclesiasticus – it is better to slip on the pavement than to have a slip of the tongue. (Ecclus. 20, 18)

Our words are so important; Words in expressing the glory of God in worship and doctrine, and words as we use them in our dealings with each other.

The need for wisdom and control in what we say – how we use our words – how we bridle our tongues – has been part of a new Diocesan Policy on the use of emails. Our Church Council looked at this just yesterday when we met. We all know the temptation to press the send button when we have written out of impatience, frustration, tiredness, or even anger. Our written words betray our use of the electronic tongue.

The policy revolves around five words beginning with the letter ‘C’ – Correct, Considerate, Constructive, Collaborative, Concise.

Taming the tongue may be an eternal struggle, but by being consciously aware of these 5 ‘C’s we might better use our words in all our communications.

How we use words matters. St. Peter is concise and precise. He gives honour to Jesus in his use of just one word – ‘Messiah’.

Jesus responds by sharing with his disciples the right content of this honorific word. He is Messiah not because of healings, miracles, inspiring teaching and wisdom, but because he is to suffer, be rejected, and killed. This is not the usual stuff of messianic populism that generations of humanity seek. Those who wish to use the name ‘Messiah’ of Jesus will have much demanded of them. This word will lead them into, through and beyond the mystery of the cross into a life of rich blessing – life with the one who has the words of eternal life. Words matter – they matter in our dialogue with our Creator, and they matter with our fellow creatures.

Jesus says, ‘Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.’

Jesus said this in the every place where St. Peter confesses that Jesus is the Messiah, and the very place where I picked up a seedling palm tree and saw my first elephantine little hyrax.