Sermon for the Second Sunday after Trinity – 18th June 2023:Exodus 19, 2-8; Rom 5, 1-8; Mt 9, 35-10, 8

Fr Leonard Dolan – St Paul’s Athens

 

Last week we reflected on the highly significant ministry of encouragement of St. Barnabas. Though not one of the 12 Apostles he gains the title Apostle because of his outward looking and world facing ministry.

His companion for much of the Ministry of Encouragement was the Apostle Paul until they parted company. St. Paul is also not one of the Twelve, and yet in many ways he is ‘THE’ Apostle. His apostolate is marked by his journeys, his sacrifices and his sheer determination, if not stubbornness, in preaching the truth about Jesus to Jew and pagan alike mostly expressed in his letters to the primitive church communities. Paul is truly an alien in foreign lands.

Our gospel reading this morning names the Twelve Apostles – each one, after the experience of the resurrection, sent out to various parts of the Mediterranean and beyond carrying with them a gospel message. Peter was martyred in Rome – now the See of Peter; Andrew came to Greece and his remains are in the cathedral in Patras; Thomas went to India – the Mar Thoma church still bears his name; James also in in Indian sub-continent who gives his name to the Jacobite tradition of Christianity (nothing to do with Jacobites in Scotland – that’s a different period in history and a very different story).

All these Apostles, hand –picked by Christ and formed into faithful messengers, angels, of the gospel message. The language of this short passage of St. Matthew’s gospel is packed with dynamic language: ‘go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’, ‘go, proclaim the good news; cure, raise, cleanse, cast out.’ These are all strong verbs, all imperatives. In those designated Apostles the ministry of Christ himself is multiplied; he is the source, but in faith Christ’s church can do these things by his commands and through faith.

Another side to these bold commandments is the evidence required by us that verifies it. You will remember the famous passage in John’s gospel about St. Thomas. He is famously called Doubting Thomas – maybe partly because it is all too human to see the glass half empty. He should really be known to us as Faithful Thomas because he came to believe and said the words so many of us wish to say with utter conviction ‘My Lord and my God.’ For him the glass is full and running over – the cup of salvation frothing, overflowing with God’s love and grace.

Discouragement is a default position for so many humans. If we pray for something and it doesn’t happen we give up on prayer, and we might even give up on God. We give up too easily – we don’t get what we want – but our Christ died for us. How can we place our often self-centred prayers beside the self-sacrificial Christ. Our prayer should be that we can be more Christ-like; and if more Christ-like maybe the agenda of our hopes and desires might just shift their emphasis.

Christ himself commends persistence. With prayer we need to keep going; in faith we need to keep going; in hope we need to keep going; for persistence is a godly quality. Had God himself not been persistent how else might we be reading what we refer to as the Old Testament. Where did God give up on his people? How often do the people give up on God? Why else is the voice of the prophet needed but to call us back, to re-gather us, to encourage us to change. Why else do so many of the Psalms cry out in despair – indeed the classic is Psalm 22 quoted by Christ from the cross ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ Those psalms of lament and despair allow us to voice genuinely our human condition and our capacity towards absorbing frailty and failure – yet always in the Psalms there is no abandonment of faith in God. Yes, there may be this, there may be that, there may be disappointment and frustration – but yet, but yet ‘You are the wonderful God who created the world and all that is in it’. Always the freedom in the Psalms allows human mortality to interface with divine immortality.

We so desperately need encouragement. In the western world there is talk of dramatic church decline – the Archbishop of Canterbury recently has even said he must take some of the blame for this – as if it would really make much difference. The trajectory of history shows that humans ebb and flow in their faithfulness. Perhaps what we really need are fewer mission strategies, less obsession with numbers and attendance, and more voices of prophecy that call us back to what the Lord our God demands of us justice and righteousness it is called in the Old Testament, and it is what Jesus calls ‘love’.

The Apostle Paul, in the Letter this morning, addresses the Christians in Rome – here is a culture that is so antithetical to the message of Jesus Christ. In a world where the Emperor was a God, this is the city where he lived. Paul addresses the fragile community with words of encouragement – justification, peace, grace, hope, glory; nothing defeatist in this language despite all the danger and adversity.

Not only this, he uses a logical argument to make his point, when his starting point is not power, strength, influence, balance sheets, stability (all things that most of like to see the church having) but rather he starts with suffering: ‘suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.’ This is Paul giving encouragement, and promoting endurance and persistence.

Against this background I have to say something about the tragic loss of life in the international waters south of the Peloponnese. Greece has had three days of national mourning. The facts don’t need to be repeated. The issue of Migration has become a political game. Greece is no stranger to the deep social challenges of migration. As a nation it has suffered the effects of migration more than most, and far more than the UK for example.

I have been talking about determination, persistence, and the fight against discouragement. Migration has to been in the light of this biblical message. It is imbedded in the scriptures that to be in the right relationship with God and with our fellows human beings, that the stranger, the alien, has a respected place. I cannot begin to imagine what persistence is needed by any migrant to walk thousands of kilometres, or to sail treacherous journeys, simply because of hope. It is hope that motivates, and it is hope that gets betrayed. Their hope, sadly, also has its human traitors.

The casualties of this recent tragic event are literally a drop in the ocean when compared with how many migrants globally have lost their lives making dangerous journeys because of hope. Their hopes were dashed because their hope was exploited for evil gain. Yet, imagine a world with no hope. The Apostle said – where there is no hope the people perish. I would add, where there is no hope the church also perishes. Proclaim the good news, Jesus says, ‘the Kingdom of heaven has come near’.