Sermon for the 19th Sunday after Trinity – 10th October 2021: Amos 5, 6-7, 10-15; Hebrews 4, 12-end; Mark 10, 17-31.
Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens
Please note: there is no sermon from me on 17th October because I am at the Archdeaconry Synod in Corfu. On Oct 24th the Harvest service is at Kokotos Vineyard so there is NO service in St. Paul’s!
I am often asked by Greek Orthodox faithful if we have saints in the Church of England. I could embark on the long answer about who and what saints are, and how St. Paul uses the word ‘saint’ for all the believers in the Christian communities to which he writes letters.
However, I know that this is not the question I am being asked. I’m being asked if we have saints in a canonical understanding of the word, women and men designated with the title ‘saint.
Gladly I can answer confidently with a ‘yes’ because the Church of England, the worldwide Anglican Church, has a calendar of saints, or a Sanctorale to give it its Latin title. These would be days classified as festa rather than feria – feast days rather than ordinary days.
In the Church of England Calendar of Saints there is a core of names of holy women and men, whose days are celebrated by the whole church, but each diocese is encouraged to have its own additional days to celebrate more local or regional saints, who are not in the national calendar. Many of these saints, both local and national, ascribe their names to parish churches. This week is a good example.
On Monday 11th we keep the feast of St. Ethelburga; on the 12th St. Wilfred of Ripon; on 13th St. Edward the Confessor. These three are pre-Reformation saints. Since the Reformation we have no mechanism to create more canonical saints, but our calendar is much enriched by the addition of those whom we chose to ‘commemorate’, so on 16th October we keep the Commemoration of Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer, faithful Anglicans who were caught up in the fraught historical period of the Reformation, when different factions were trying to establish the future direction of reformed English Christianity. Just for good measure on 15th we throw in a Spanish saint and mystic from the 16th century, St. Theresa of Avila.
So, in answer to the question, ‘does the Church of England have saints’ the definitive answer is an affirmative. In fact this coming week there is only one day, a feria, when we are not keeping a saint or martyr. This is a rich week for historic holiness and wondrous witnessing. They are participants in that ‘great cloud of witnesses’ referred to in the Letter to the Hebrews. These have inherited a place in the kingdom where with ‘angels and archangels and all the heavenly host’ they are constantly offering worship to Almighty God, and in whose company we too share in worship here and now – heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest.
However, despite this honouring of the saints, we still need to re-orientate ourselves towards the gospel reading this morning, which gives us a reality check on the kingdom.
From the beginning of his ministry, at the time of his baptism at the River Jordan, Jesus has been proclaiming the ‘good news’ of the Kingdom of God. Jesus is announcing a regime change. The Roman Empire and earthly understandings of power are now challenged. God’s reign is now beginning. The assumption is that God’s reign is beginning through the coming of Jesus – he is Messiah, anointed to both announce the Kingdom, but also to inhabit the Kingdom here on this earth.
No doubt having heard the proclamation a rich man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit the Kingdom. ‘Good teacher, what must I do to inherit the kingdom…’ Matthew and Luke vary from this version, Teacher, what good must I do…’ That difference apart, though worth noting for reasons of biblical analysis, Jesus responds with fairly clear instruction – the necessary conditions were familiar to the man, and to the rest of the witnesses of this story. Jesus begins to quote to him the ethical teaching of the Ten Commandments; a good place to start – indeed a pious place to start. In return the man, whose piety is consistent with the ethics of the Commandments says basically ‘well yes, I agree, and I keep to all these’. Did he indeed? On one hand this could be commendable obedience, or it could be an insufferable lack of humility and human empathy.
He has kept the commandments, but something is not yet right. He has accumulated wealth and kept the Commandments. Maybe he is assuming that it is because he has kept the Commandments that God has blessed him with wealth. The Christian equivalent of this would be the wealth or success theology that blights much Christian evangelism – see how faithful I am by the wealth I have accumulated! Jesus re-orientates the man away from just pious obedience to the Decalogue. It might be likened to those who can boast total acceptance of the Creed of Nicaea (which we recite almost every Sunday) but whose heart is hardened to seeing the results of poverty, homelessness, and hunger in the streets on the way to or from the church. In short it is called hypocricy. It is not an identification with the Kingdom of God.
Jesus is quite harsh on the man – but it is generally a harsh response. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle… a well known harsh statement of Jesus.
Can this be right? Can we not have possessions, homes, cars, food in the fridge, savings in the bank, pension provision, holidays, and so on, and enter the Kingdom of Heaven? I think a lot of us will be locked out!
To try and work out how I get in maybe I can interpret this difficult text to make it more palatable to me, and maybe to you – though I could be entirely wrong. It is about attitude – I have to ask, is my heart hard or is it generous? Do I condemn those who suffer the poverty of having no choice in life or do I contribute in some way to let choice become available? Do I help in some way for the hungry to be fed, those with no justice to get justice – and so the challenges go on. I am challenged by the gospel to ask some of the most heart-searching questions both about me and how I use my resources, and about my neighbour and how I respond to their needs. The gospel, you see, is not about me, it is about us, together, working hard and breaking sweat if needed to bring about the Kingdom of God. Simple responses of self-preservation just won’t cut it. ‘My God, my faith, my Church’. How tempting this is.
‘Good teacher, what must I do…?’ It is the challenge from the one who announces the beginning of a new reign – the reign of God, the one who yes, has passed through the heavens, but who also was born in a stable and killed on a cross. He knows me, and he knows you, because he has been with us, and was not exempt from suffering from what it is like to be with me and with you – and having been with us he calls us to be different because he teaches us to pray that the kingdom of heaven might be how things are here on earth. How often have we prayed that one?
So this gospel reading this morning really challenges us to the core, for Hebrews rightly tells us ‘the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two edged sword.’ but we are not left to try and sort out the dilemma by ourselves.’ But don’t give up – persevere – for we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens’ flowing from whom we receive mercy and find help in time of need. (Hebrews 4, 15).
So yes, we do have saints in the Church of England – witnesses of the Kingdom, who were and are just like you and me, struggling, striving, sometimes getting things right, sometime wrong, and we pray that we too may share in their holiness as we strive for the work of the Kingdom.
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