St Paul's Cathedral

Trinity 10
Genesis 37.1-4, 12-28
Romans 10.5-15
Matthew 14.22-33

May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of all our hearts be now and always acceptable in your sight, O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

‘For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”’ (Romans 10.12,13)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

On August 28th, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. Martin Luther King had a dream, and it was a profoundly Christian dream. He said,
‘When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of that old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, we are free at last!”’

Dr King had a dream, it was a profoundly Christian dream, and it came straight from the Letters of St Paul, ‘For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him.’ This was a teaching he repeats in all his great Letters. It is there, of course, in his Letter to the Romans, it is there in his Letter to the Galatians,
‘There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.’ (Gal. 3.28)

It is there in his Letter to the Colossians,

‘In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!’ (Col. 3.11)

To be a Christian you don’t need to have a particular nationality, you don’t need to have a particular coloured skin, you don’t need to have a particular language. Now in the Gospels Jesus himself speaks of the inclusive nature of the Kingdom of God in his parables and teaching, and he does so often by use of the image of a great feast, a great feast to which all peoples would ultimately be invited, and he tells his listeners,
‘Then people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God. Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.’ (Luke 13.29,30)

The religious elitists, who presume that they alone possess salvation, will find that those whom they derided in this life will feast in the kingdom before them. Because, for Jesus, everyone is invited to the feast, the haughty and the self-important keep themselves away, and so in the Parable of the Great Feast the host tells his servant,
‘Go out into the roads and lanes, and compel people to come in, so that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those who were invited will taste my dinner.’ (Luke 14.23,24)

The elitists exclude themselves from the feast, and by doing so are cast ‘into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ (Matt. 8.12) But all who come are welcome to the feast. The last thing the risen Jesus tells his disciples in Matthew’s Gospel is this,

‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’ (Matt. 28.18-20)

St Paul knew that the great commission was to make disciples ‘of all nations’¸ he risked his life time and again for the sake of reaching out to those whom religious bigots regarded as having second-rate cultures and second-rate spiritual lives. In the eyes of God no culture, no language, no colour of skin is second-rate. Thus when St John the Divine sees those white-robed martyrs of heaven in the Revelation he sees ‘a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb’ (Rev. 7.9).

Forms of Christianity which are taken up too much with the furtherance of one particular culture or nation have thus somewhat missed the point. In the Kingdom of God heaven and earth are filled with the rich cultural diversity of the children of God. Christianity is internationalist and not tribal; the Christian unity is not a unity of culture or language, but a unity found in Christ as the Body of Christ.

Yet we can, and should, take this one step further. Christian unity is something which should transcend different Christian denominations. The Church of England has for centuries taught that the universal Church is the company of all faithful people wherever they might be in this world and the next. It has taught that the Church of England is simply one small part of a universal Church which exceeds national and cultural boundaries. It is for this reason that all baptized persons who are communicant members of other Churches which subscribe to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and who are in good standing in their own Church, are welcome to receive Holy Communion at this service. Ecumenical acceptance of one another is a demand of the Gospel. Recently Brother Roger of Taizé wrote this,
‘One saying of Jesus that is becoming as relevant as never before is, “When you bring your offering to the altar and someone has something against you, leave everything and go and be reconciled first of all”.
“Go first of all.” Not, “Put it off till later”.

Christian denominations who bring their offerings to the altar but who have put off till later reconciliation and fellowship between the churches are not following our Lord’s command here. ‘Leave everything and go and be reconciled first of all.’ Everyone is invited to the feast in the Kingdom of God, the elitists exclude themselves.

Yes, as Christians we are a culturally inclusive community. We exist as the Body of Christ as a community of different individuals. But there is a very real sense in which we need an understanding of ourselves in our corporate life as a community and an understanding of ourselves as Christian individuals. In our Gospel reading this morning we heard of Christ’s own manifestation of the two. He had fed the crowds with the five loaves and two fish, a great feast again where everybody is fed, and after having dismissed the crowds, we are told that he ‘went up the mountain by himself to pray’ where he was ‘there alone’. Christ’s regular withdrawal into the wilderness and on mountains in order to pray in solitary is a recurrent feature of his earthly life; it reminds us of the spiritual need to get away from it all for reflection and prayer. If we are, quite properly as Christians, integrated as a community, then also, quite properly, we need time for quiet contemplation and prayer. Life today is so very noisy for most of us. Our lives are lived against the seemingly never-ending background sound of traffic. Domestically too radios and televisions fill our homes with endless processed information. All of us need, on occasion, to get away and be still. Stillness is often one of the great spiritual gifts given us by our great cathedrals, and indeed, by our parish churches. All of us need regularly to sit quietly before the Lord. Whether it is at home in quiet moments of the day; whether it is in the cool and calm of our tranquil cathedrals; or whether it is altogether away to some natural place of quiet, all of us need to sit quietly to communicate with God. Often when we think of communication we quite naturally think of speaking and of words. And when we think of God speaking to us, we magnify and extend human communication so that we imagine perhaps God’s language to be a larger and louder form of human speech. Yet when, as we read in the First Book of the Kings, Elijah escapes into the wilderness after having fought the prophets of Baal he takes refuge in a cave. And we read that:
...the Lord passed by, and a great strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind, and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold there came a voice to him... (1 Kings 19.11-13)

God spoke to Elijah not in the form of the great strong wind, nor in the earthquake, nor even the fire, but in a still small voice. If we become too involved in the great winds, earthquakes and fires of our modern technological world we may easily miss the still small voice of the Lord.

Let me tell you a story. It is a story that comes from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers - the fourth century Christian hermits and monks of the Egyptian desert.

It was said that there were three friends who were not afraid of hard work. The first chose to reconcile those who were fighting each other, as it is said ‘Blessed are the peace-makers’ (Matt. 5). The second chose to visit the sick. The third went to live in prayer and stillness in the desert. Now in spite of all of his labours, the first could not make peace in everyone’s quarrels; and in his sorrow he went to him who was serving the sick, and he found him also disheartened, for he could not fulfil that commandment either. So they went together to see him who was living in the stillness of prayer. They told him their difficulties and begged him to tell them what to do. After a short silence, he poured some water into a bowl and said to them, ‘Look at the water,’ and it was disturbed. After a little while he said to them again, ‘look how the water is now,’ and as they looked into the water, they saw their own faces reflected in it as in a mirror. Then he said to them, ‘It is the same for those who live among humans; disturbances prevent them from seeing their faults. But when a person is still, especially in the desert, then they see their own failings.’

Without stillness any reflections we have of ourselves will be distorted reflections. We must allow our minds to clear like the water in the bowl so we might see clearly.

The Russian Orthodox Archbishop Anthony Bloom tells a lovely story about a lady who found enormous difficulty in getting down to pray. “Whenever I try, my mind wanders”, she told him. Bloom asked her what was her favourite pastime. “Knitting” she said. His advice was that she should light a candle, sit herself in a comfortable chair, and “knit silently before the Lord”. They met up again years later and even Anthony Bloom was surprised by what she reported. She told him that as she sat in silence, with just the rhythm and click of her knitting needles, the room was filled with what she called a wonderful ‘presence’. From then on wandering thoughts were never a problem.

We are in our spiritual lives to open ourselves to God, to be receptive so that we might hear what God wishes for us. As Christians we are people who seek after God and the Kingdom, we are not meant to be seeking after our own egotistical cravings. And what is here true of our spiritual lives individually is also so very true of our lives as a Christian community. We are to be open and receptive to each other, so that we may truly hear each other. To be a Christian is to be someone who listens as much as talks, who listens to God and who listens to fellow human beings. Now perhaps all of what I have said can be summarized in the following sentence, Christianity is an open faith and Christians are open people. We, as Christians, are open to all people of whatever culture, language and social background; we are open to each other, truly listening to each other; we are open and honest to ourselves; and we are open to God; and perhaps most importantly, God is open to us, God is open to us. In Jesus Christ the invisible God is revealed and accessible. And Christ invites us all to the feast. He invites us all. ‘Come to the feast, all of you. Come to the feast, you are all welcome.’ And by Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ we are healed, restored and sanctified. We are set right with God and with one another in Christ. So we come from east and west, from north and south, and eat in the kingdom of God. We come with all our differences as the rainbow people of God, beautiful in all our rich variety. We come accepting one another and loving one another as God has accepted and loves us. We come as open people to a God who is open in Jesus Christ.

To that same God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be all honour, might, majesty, dominion and glory, both now for evermore. Amen.