Sermon for the 3rd Sunday before lent – 5th February 2023: Isaiah 58, 1-9; 1 Cor 2, 1-12; Matt 5, 13-15).
Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens
Over the years I have had the privilege of leading six or seven pilgrimage groups to the Holy Land. In the modern times and over many decades this land has faced troubles – troubles that have their root basically in religion. Religion so often gets mistaken for, and gets in the way of, faith.
Most pilgrimages are divided between two geographical bases – the Holy city of Jerusalem, which is in East Jerusalem, and the area of the Sea of Galilee. If you speak to most pilgrims they divide neatly into two groups – those who love the Jerusalem based sites, such as the Old City, the Western or Wailing Wall, the Temple Mount, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the wells of Bethsaida, the crusader church of St. Anne with its extraordinary echo, the route of the Via Crucis, the House of Caiaphas, the church of the Nations, The Garden of Gethsemane, Golgotha, the Byzantine site of the Ascension of our Lord, or the Cenacle – where Pentecost took place.
Others prefer the more open air sites around the Sea of Galilee – Capernaum where we see the archaeological remains of the small fishing village where Peter, Andrew, James, John lived and worked, with its nearby synagogue – ironically it is a modern synagogue; by modern I mean Roman! Around the shores of the sea there are holy sites where Christ delivered the Beatitudes; where Peter declared him to be the Messiah, and many more.
For me the balance of favour is in the old city of Jerusalem, with its hustle and bustle, and way of life that has not changed for centuries; the Jewish Quarter, the Muslim Quarter, the Orthodox Quarter, and the Armenian Quarter – all guiding us back to times when cultures and ways of life co-existed with their ancient beliefs and practices; one city and three faiths. This is its attraction, its beauty, and its eternal problem.
Galilee by contrast does have its attractions. For some it will be the experience of a kibbutz – for there are many around this Sea of Galilee in a strongly Israeli area.
I am minded by recent events how complex this country is. In Israel a Government is now in place, more right wing than has been in place for a long time. A coalition has had be formed by the Prime Minister to include ‘conservative’ some might say ‘extreme’ religious Jewish political alliances. Most of the world wants to see a ‘two state’ solution that allows both an Israeli and a Palestinian settlement. It is easy to see that as the preferred solution if you don’t actually live there.
But this is not essentially a political sermon, at least not in terms of the politics of this troubled nation since 1947 when the British Mandate ended. Even before that there were divisions and violence.
My mind travels back to Galilee. It travels back to the words of Jesus in today’s gospel when he talks of salt and light. I will reflect this morning only on the latter.
I recall vividly visits to Galilee, ‘Galilee of the nations’ and to so many opportunities to sail with groups in small vessels out into the centre of the sea that Christ calmed in a storm, and where Peter and his brother Andrew fished for a living.
It is the custom for tourist groups – pilgrims in reality – to sail out into the middle of the lake; for the priest to read from the scriptures about Christ calming the storm, and, thankfully for us in our Anglican tradition, to sing the words of the beautiful hymn ‘Dear Lord and Father of mankind’.
Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
forgive our foolish ways;
reclothe us in our rightful mind,
in purer lives thy service find,
in deeper reverence, praise.
In good tourist satisfaction practice the owner of the boat would play over the public address system the National Anthem of the group. I have to say, taken by surprise, I only allowed that on my first pilgrimage. ‘God save our gracious Queen’; La Marsaillaise’ or the Stars and Stripes, has no place here.
What does strike me though, more than anything else, is the difference in how this whole seascape and landscape differs between daytime and night-time. Shocking though it may seem, the mountains on one side of this lake is the Golan Heights – a range notorious in the conflicts between Israel and Jordan.
At night a different perspective emerges. On the mountain ranges around the Sea of Galilee small communities suddenly become visible, which in daytime hardly seem to exist – Small villages; communities of people, suddenly become apparent with the domestic lights of their homes twinkling in the darkness of the mountainside.
Life becomes visible only in the darkness of the night. Jesus says to us, ‘You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid.” And also ‘Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven”.
Imagine, just imagine, what it was like for St. Paul when he visited Corinth. Any of you who have been there will know that Acro-Corinth, is in so many ways geologically far more impressive that the Acropolis in Athens. Imagine it against the blackness of the dark night, with lights flickering. For Paul, Christ is the light that shines so impressively in the darkness of this world. It is Christ who is so pre-eminent – pre-eminent not in power and majesty and might, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”
For Paul it is this Christ whose light shines – a sign of hope against the shadow of death and of darkness. Christ shines like the little lights on the mountainside of the Golan Heights, like the lights that signal against the darkness on the lofty top of ancient Acro-Corinth.
Of all the four gospels it is the 4th Gospel, written by the Apostle John, that develops the powerful theme of Christ as the light of the world. ‘The light shines in the darkness, and darkness did not overcome it.’ (John 1, 5)
In the dismissal of the baptism liturgy, the newly baptized person is instructed to ‘Go in the light and peace of Christ’.
So friends – how do we witness to that light? Amen.
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