SUNDAY 23 APRIL 2017: FIRST SUNDAY AFTER EASTER: MORALITY AND FREEDOM

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight: O Lord our strength and our Redeemer...

Bishop Steve has asked that, in the light of the current political situation in our country, we engage in 50 days of moral action from Passion to Pentecost with a special area of focus each Sunday.

The focus for today is:

‘The Morality of Freedom’.

Cape Town, 9 May 1994

The Grand Parade

Take your minds back to the excitement, the euphoria, the happiness, the anticipation, the togetherness of that moment....

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The inaugural speech of our then President Nelson Mandela

‘Today we are entering a new era for our country and its people. Today we celebrate not the victory of a party, but a victory for all the people of South Africa.’

‘The people of South Africa have spoken in these elections. They want change! And change is what they will get. Our plan is to create jobs, promote peace and reconciliation, and to guarantee freedom for all South Africans.’

I ask you to spend a little time reflecting on that moment and then to put it aside as we consider some of the moralities and the current realities of our freedom....

In our reading from Galatians today we heard some very pertinent words:

 "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery"

Consider then these words which introduce the Ten Commandments. "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery." The land of slavery. God had given the people of Israel political freedom from Pharaoh, and spiritual freedom from the gods of Egypt, in order that they could practice moral freedom from their own inner bondage to sin, and for the purpose of practicing that freedom which God gave to them with the Ten Commandments.

This sounds a bit like a contradiction in terms with commandments equating to freedom but..

In the Bible, the Law is not the opposite of freedom; it is the key to freedom in that it told the Israelites (and us in our country today!)  how to live in their new found freedom.

The Ten Commandments and the other laws and statutes that expanded them were the law-code of a brand new nation -and this nation was unique - who was going to tell them how to conduct themselves, what to do?. In order to practice freedom, you need to have law to provide direction.

...think about how that applies to us in the South Africa of today... the unfair load placed on our judicial fraternity to correct what should not need correcting...in the protection of freedom.

All of our citizens, in law, have equal access to freedom.

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Consider the introduction to the Freedom Charter:

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We, the People of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know: that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people; that our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality; that our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities; that only a democratic state, based on the will of all the people, can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race, sex or belief; And therefore, we, the people of South Africa, black and white together - equals, countrymen and brothers - adopt this Freedom Charter. And we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing neither strength nor courage, until the democratic changes here set out have been won.

We must ask ourselves:

 ‘Is this the morality of Freedom?’

‘Is this what we truly have in our country today?

The Oxford Dictionary, amongst other meanings, describes ‘Freedom’ as:

‘The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants.’

‘Absence of subjection to foreign domination or despotic government.’ Despotic government

While ‘morality’ is defined as:

‘Principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behaviour’.

From an individual perspective we live in a society that seems committed to self-interest and to everyone doing their own thing, pursuing their own happiness, comfort, and peace.

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Our individual ‘rights’ have become paramount with little emphasis on the accompanying responsibilities. We are all entitled to ‘freedom’ whatever interpretation we may put on it....while morality has become almost a blurred concept with increasing flexibility.

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Sadly, for many people, including a fair proportion of those with political power the concepts such as ‘Love thy neighbour’ and

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‘For the Greater Good of all’ have become foreign and lost in the race for personal enrichment.

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The message of Christ is love for God and love for one’s neighbour, the pursuit and the promotion of the kingdom of God, doing not our own thing, but denial of the self-life that we might be free to live for God and others.

Thus, we find in the New Testament what we might call the doctrine of One Another. Over and over again in the New Testament we find injunctions and statements concerning our responsibilities to one another. The point being, God has called us to be a ministering people following the example of our Lord who came not to be ministered to, but to minister and give Himself as a ransom for many.

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Freedom is not the right to do as one pleases, but gives each person the power and the capacity to both have the will to do and actually to do as one ought to do.

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From the classic Water Babies tale – Mrs do as you would be done by.

True freedom is never freedom from responsibility, but a responsibility not only for choices made, but for the right and moral choices.

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Galatians 5:13-15 You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature, rather serve one another in love. The entire Law is summed up in a single command, “Love your neighbour as yourself.” 15 If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other’.

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An area of real concern is when the political leaders of a country who have been elected to govern choose to take the view that ‘freedom’

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means doing their own thing, being their own boss, looking after number one first. The Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary says it means “exemption from necessity in choice and action.” It is the right to any choice so long as it is your own personal choice.

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But the Bible teaches, as well as a simple observation of life, that such a definition or viewpoint is not freedom. It is instead licence as in the abuse of freedom and an excuse to throw off the moral restraints of God in pursuit of selfish goals. This always results eventually in the exploitation of others, moral degeneracy, and lawlessness as is becoming more and more evident...

The Oath of Service taken by the leader of a nation is designed to be a counterbalance to this loss of morality in freedom...

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For example:

The Oath or solemn affirmation of President 

The President or Acting President, before the Chief Justice, or another judge designated by

the Chief Justice, must and did swear as follows:

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In the presence of everyone assembled here, and in full realisation of the high calling I assume as President of the Republic of South Africa, I, Jacob Zuma, solemnly swear

 that I will be faithful to the Republic of South Africa, and will obey, observe, uphold and maintain the Constitution and all other law of the Republic; and I solemnly and sincerely promise that I will always:

• promote all that will advance the Republic, and oppose all that may harm it;

•protect and promote the rights of all South Africans;

• discharge my duties with all my strength and talents to the best of my knowledge and ability and true to the dictates of my conscience;

• do justice to all; and

• devote myself to the well-being of the Republic and all of its people.

So help me God.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free! This declaration of our freedom is both a statement of an accomplished fact and a goal to pursue. Freedom is ours because of the accomplishment of Christ: Christ has set us free! Paul does not appeal to his readers to fight to be free. Our Christian freedom is not the result of our long march. We have not liberated ourselves by our efforts. We are not able to do so. But now that freedom has been given to us by Christ, that freedom is our goal and our responsibility.

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Freedom is an inner contentment with whom we are in Christ and with what we have. It means to covet only heavenly treasure. It means the willingness and the ability to allow God to be in control of our lives. It means single-mindedness which turns the control of one’s life over to Christ. This in turn frees us spiritually and willingly to follow the Lord. It means the liberty for self-responsibility to both God and man under the grace of God.

We cannot ignore the abuse of Freedom by those who lack morality.

As Archbishop Thabo said in his sermon at the Easter Vigil:

‘Yet, even as we survey this and the litany of other social pathologies that afflict our country and our world, we have in faith to say that even though it is absolutely true that darkness overwhelms us, the events at the tomb of Jesus on Easter Day signal a greater victory, a more abundant truth. At the heart of the message of the Resurrection of Jesus is the stubborn insistence that nothing is irrevocable. No betrayal is final. There is no loss that cannot be redeemed. It is never too late to start again. As John Shea reminds us: “What the Resurrection teaches us is not how to live but how to live again and again!”’

Amen

Roger Lee

EASTER 2017: SERVICE OF LIGHTING THE NEW FIRE

Gospel:  John 20:1 - 18

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Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.’ 3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went towards the tomb. 4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; 9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. 10 Then the disciples returned to their homes.

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11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; 12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. 13 They said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping?’ She said to them, ‘They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.’ 14 When she had said this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, ‘Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.’ 16 Jesus said to her, ‘Mary!’ She turned and said to him in Hebrew, ‘Rabboni!’ (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”’ 18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord’; and she told them that he had said these things to her…’.

In our gospel, Mary Magdalene is the first at the tomb “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark”, Mary Magdalene is the one who sees stone had been removed from the tomb and she then she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, ‘They have taken the Lord out. Tradition has it that John is “the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved” as he is modestly portrayed in the gospel that bears his name.

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John describes how only Mary Magdalene remains at the empty tomb, and that Mary Magdalene is the first to hear from Angels that Jesus is risen, and she is also the first to see and talk to the resurrected Christ! Clearly, she was a woman of great faith, and great love.

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Tonight we’re reflecting on the example of Mary Magdalene – she is someone who truly loved Jesus, someone who truly went the extra mile for Him, and yet she has been so vilified by the church over the years… WHY? Can she show us how we too can follow Jesus more fully?

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Firstly, who was Mary Magdalene, really?

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Mary Magdalene has been represented in many different ways throughout history, from the writing of the New Testament to the filming of “The Da Vinci Code”, her image has been repeatedly conscripted, contorted and contradicted….

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For many centuries the most revered of saints, this woman became the embodiment of Christian devotion, yet she was only elusively identified in Scripture, and, in one age after another, her image was reinvented, from prostitute to mystic to celibate nun to feminist icon to the matriarch of divinity’s secret dynasty.

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How the past is remembered, how sexual desire is domesticated, how men and women negotiate their separate impulses; how power inevitably seeks sanctification, how tradition becomes authoritative, how revolutions are co-opted; how fallibility is reckoned with, and how sweet devotion can be made to serve violent domination—all these cultural questions helped shape the story of the woman who befriended Jesus of Nazareth.

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Who was she? From the New Testament, one can conclude that Mary of Magdala (her hometown, a village on the shore of the Sea of Galilee) was a leading figure among those attracted to Jesus.

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When the men abandoned Jesus at his hour of mortal danger, Mary of Magdala was one of the women who stayed with him, even to the Crucifixion. She was present at the tomb, the first person to whom Jesus appeared after his resurrection and the first to preach the “Good News” of that miracle, as we read in John’s Gospel earlier. An example of how we too can follow Jesus more fully…

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These are among the few specific assertions made about Mary Magdalene in the Gospels. From other texts of the early Christian era, it seems that her status as an “apostle,” in the years after Jesus’ death, rivaled even that of Peter.

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This prominence derived from the intimacy of her relationship with Jesus, beginning with the threads of these few statements in the earliest Christian records, dating to the first through third centuries, an elaborate tapestry was woven, leading to a portrait of St. Mary Magdalene in which the most consequential note—that she was a repentant prostitute—is almost certainly untrue.

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On that false note hangs the dual use to which her legend has been put ever since: discrediting sexuality in general and disempowering women in particular. NOT how to follow Jesus!!

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Confusions attached to Mary Magdalene’s character were compounded across time as her image was conscripted into one power struggle after another, in conflicts that defined the Christian Church:

• over attitudes toward the material world, focused on sexuality;
• the authority of an all-male clergy;
• celibacy;
• the branding of theological diversity as heresy;

Through all the ages, reinventions of Mary Magdalene played their role.

Her recent reemergence in a novel and film as the “secret wife of Jesus and the mother of his fate-burdened daughter” shows that the conscripting and twisting are still going on.

But, in truth, the confusion starts with the Gospels themselves – there is a powerful message of feminism in the New Testament, as well as attempts to repress women.

In the gospels the confusion regarding Mary of Magdala, begins in the eighth chapter of Luke: “Now after this [Jesus] made his way through towns and villages preaching, and proclaiming the Good News of the kingdom of God. With him went the Twelve, as well as certain women who had been cured of evil spirits and ailments: Mary surnamed the Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, Joanna the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, Susanna, and several others who provided for them out of their own resources”.

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Two things of note are implied in this passage. First, these women “provided for” Jesus and the Twelve, which suggests that the women were well-to-do, respectable figures.

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Second, they all had been cured of something, including Mary Magdalene. The “seven demons,” as applied to her, indicates an ailment (not necessarily possession) of a certain severity.

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This otherwise innocuous reference to Mary Magdalene takes on a kind of radioactive narrative energy because of what immediately precedes it at the end of the seventh chapter, an anecdote of stupendous power:

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“One of the Pharisees invited [Jesus] to a meal. When he arrived at the Pharisee’s house and took his place at table, a woman came in, who had a bad name in the town. She had heard he was dining with the Pharisee and had brought with her an alabaster jar of ointment. She waited behind him at his feet, weeping, and her tears fell on his feet, and she wiped them away with her hair; then she covered his feet with kisses and anointed them with the ointment.

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When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who this woman is that is touching him and what a bad name she has.”

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But Jesus refuses to condemn her, or even to deflect her gesture. Indeed, he recognizes it as a sign that “her many sins must have been forgiven her, or she would not have shown such great love.” “Your faith has saved you,” Jesus tells her. “Go in peace.”

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This story of the woman with the bad name, the alabaster jar, the loose hair, the “many sins,” the stricken conscience, the ointment, the rubbing of feet and the kissing would, over time, become the dramatic high point of the story of Mary Magdalene. The scene would be explicitly attached to her, and rendered again and again by the greatest Christian artists.

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But even a casual reading of this text, however charged its juxtaposition with the subsequent verses, suggests that the two women have nothing to do with each other—the weeping anointer is no more connected to Mary of Magdala than she is to Joanna or Susanna.

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Across time, this Mary went from being an important disciple whose superior status depended on the confidence Jesus himself had invested in her, a woman who shows us how we too can follow Jesus more fully, to a repentant whore whose status depended on the erotic charge of her history and the misery of her stricken conscience.

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In part, this development may have arisen out of a natural impulse to see the fragments of Scripture whole.

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This “composite Mary Magdalene” lives on as Mary in Western Christianity and in the secular Western imagination, right down, say, to the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, in which Mary Magdalene sings, “I don’t know how to love him...He’s just a man, and I’ve had so many men before... I want him so. I love him so.”

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The story has timeless appeal, first, because that problem of “how”—whether love should be eros or agape; sensual or spiritual; a matter of longing or consummation—defines the human condition.

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For women, the maternal can seem to be at odds with the erotic, a tension that in men can be reduced to the well-known opposite sterotypes of women as either “the Virgin madonna” or “the whore”, and while Mary, the mother of Jesus has been forced into the role of the “Virgin Madonna”, Mary of Magdala has been forced into the role of the “whore”.

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Both sterotypes, though, ignore the example of Gospel love - Jesus, the Jesus whom both Maries loved, the Jesus who rose from the dead, treated them both with the same dignity, honesty and respect that he treated all people.

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The truth is that Mary Magdalene was undoubtedly not only a brave follower of Christ, but also a prominent leader in the early church, a woman who lived the resurrection life Jesus is calling us all to live, as we too face the prejudices and cultural, social , economic and political evil of our time bravely, even if it means we’ll be vilified too.

Amen!

Rev Gavin Smith

12 APRIL HOLY WEEK SERMON SERIES - PRAYING WITH ICONS

Reading Gen. 18: 1-8

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We live in a visual world …an age where we look at screens for both business and pleasure – cell phones, tablets, computers, TVs. Research has shown that

-  83% of what we learn is through sight

-  11% - through hearing and only

-  6% through other senses!

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Never before have had so much Visual stimuli so it is not surprising that over the last 30-40 years there has been a growing interest in value of icons in our Western Churches – icons loved & treasured by Eastern Orthodox Churches for over 1000yrs

This evening we are looking at famous ancient icon, Rublev’s Trinity Icon possibly one of oldest icons still in Moscow. It was painted by Andrei Rublev around 1408/1410, in honour St Sergius of Radonesz.

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St Sergius (1360-1392) dedicated his life to the Holy Trinity and worked diligently to proclaim to all people and churches, that through contemplating the Holy Trinity, they would conquer divisive hatred in the world (Printout by Anna –Marie Bands, iconographer)

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Icons were used Eastern Orthodox churches depicting people, apostles, and saints as a beautiful way of teaching doctrine to many people who were illiterate

They were ‘painted’ on wood, but the work is so deeply Spiritual that you refer to writing an icon (rather than painting one)

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Iconography is a visual language & can be heard in one way:  by remaining still & prayerfully before the image. For me, this resonates with Ps. 46:10(Be still & know that I am God)

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There are two themes portrayed in Rublev’s icon –

1. The Angels visiting Abraham & Sarah
2. The Holy Trinity

They both speak of hospitality and inclusivity.

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Angels visit Abraham & Sarah:

Three strangers had arrived!  Under oaks of Mamre, Abraham hurries to entertain these travellers. It is the hottest time of day (maybe Abraham + his family were resting from the harsh noon-day heat) – yet servants are called + a feast is prepared. Abraham would have washed the feet of the hot tired travellers (see raised on stools in the icon).

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His hospitality reminds us to always show hospitality – sometimes not convenient-

 We are told in Scripture that “some have entertained angels unawares…”

In the  heat of desert Abram’s tents would be an oasis. Imagine travelling for days in heat wind and sand…Here you could stop and rest, find water…This could even be life-saving!

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In Judaic law, a stranger was viewed as God sent à Judaic law taught hospitality

We are sharply reminded of Christ – a stranger in this world:

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“Foxes have dens, and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to rest his head”.

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Yet, as a stranger in this world Christ practiced hospitality to all – esp. to the poor

He invited 5000 people to a picnic of bread and fish. He invites us all to share at the Eucharistic table

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The Trinity:

Let’s look at the icon again – It is called Rublev’s TRINITY icon, because the 3 angels in the Abraham story are also depicted as the triune God – the trinity.

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As we gaze at this triune picture of hospitality, 3 figures gazing at each other in love. At the front there is a place set for you and me - An invitation to share the hospitality in generosity and love.

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There are many themes and messages in the colours and shapes used and beautiful books available for further research. We can discover a hexagon shape holding the triune God together as one, which is very pertinent to me and some of our Patchwork group that are here tonight!

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I want to touch on the rectangle shape Michelle referred to last night

There are 4 points of rectangle, representing the 4 points of compass. People in those times believed that the earth was flat.

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Isa. 11:12: the dispersed will be gathered from 4 corners of the earth

In Gen 28:14/ Acts 3:5 we are told through Abraham all families of the earth will be blessed.  

We are talking hospitality and inclusivity

We are ALL one in Christ Jesus. We are all invited – our place has been set and is waiting for us at Christ’s table at the table of the Holy Eucharist.

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As we share in the fellowship at the Lords table, we are reminded through this icon, of hospitality to all – of inclusivity for all – of fellowship and love.

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We have been reminded in our Lenten series of our own mortality, our small short lives –and now we bring our focus back to God, to Christ’s promise that through his death we share in his resurrected life.

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We are invited to a place the Lord’s Table… (Our place has been set)

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We are invited as individuals –each precious person, who God knows and loves

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We are invited in community (body of Christ) as part of this holy family (and in the communion of saints)

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… to be seated at the Lord’s table where all are welcome, loved and cherished. Amen.

Susan Elliott

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References:

 Brand, Anna-Marie. 2017 Hand out ICON OF THE HOLY TRINITY

Castle. Tony. 2002. Gateway to the Trinity. Meditations on Rublev’s icon. Kildare: Bookcraft, Midsomer Norton

Guenther, Margaret, 1994. Holy Listening. The Art of Spiritual Direction. Cambridge: Darton, Longman + Todd

Snyman. Desiree. 2008. In the Gaze of God. Living Rublev’s Trinity Icon. Kempton Park. Acad SA

10 APRIL 2017 - HOLY WEEK SERMON SERIES: PRAYING WITH ICONS

As a protestant, earlier in my spiritual journey, I was uncomfortable with the idea of prying with icons, seeing them as ‘graven images’ to which I should not bow down.

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However, fairly earlier on in my journey in prayer, after first praying with an icon, I realized that my prayer life was reduced by being deprived of the physical dimension of the spiritual life. Prayer had become mainly an activity of the head, and God was inviting me to use all my senses in prayer, including my eyes.

Jim Forest describes how many of our prayers have become too mental, like birds trying to fly with one wing. Icons can help us grow back the missing wing, the physical aspect of prayer.

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Do you pray with your eyes closed? Because icons are physical objects, they serve as invitations to keep our eyes open when we pray. While prayer may often be, in Thomas Merton's words, "like a face-to-face meeting in the dark," cutting a major link with the physical world by closing your eyes is not a precondition of prayer.

Icons help solve a very simple problem: If I am to pray with open eyes, what should I be looking at? It doesn't have to be icons, but icons are a good and helpful choice. They serve as bridges to Christ, as links with the saints, as reminders of pivotal events in the history of salvation.

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Finding icons can seem daunting if you don't know where to look. In fact, though you may not be aware of it, probably you will find them nearby. Just Google, or visit Pauline’s bookshop or maybe even your local Orthodox parish and you’ll find icon prints. You could even contact an iconographer in the event you want to buy or commission a hand-painted icon.

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Once you begin praying with icons, you may find icons have a way of seeking you out. Maria Hamilton’s words resonate with me personal experience: "When an icon wants to be in your icon corner, it just comes to you. There is nothing you can do about it. I was given a small icon when I was chrismated [sacrament or mystery in the Eastern churches we know as confirmation]. Then I gave two away to people now and then, and every time I gave one away, two more came in its place. It is possible, with effort, to control the multiplication of books and recordings, but not icons. I never buy icons, because they just come to live here."

Maria also noted something a priest once said to her: "Do not go out and buy icons. Go downtown and look at Christ in the faces of the poor." For this very reason, during the Orthodox Liturgy it is not only icons that are censed by the deacon or priest but each person standing in the church. If we are indifferent to the image of God in other people, we won't find the image in icons. One thinks of the advice given to medieval pilgrims: "If you do not travel with Him whom you seek, you will not find Him when you reach your destination."

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Once you have an icon, it requires a place. There may be an "icon corner" in the place you live; an area where one or several icons are placed that serves as a regular center of prayer. I have pictures of icons on my prayer book, and we also have various icons scattered around the various rooms in our home….

Some people like having a special place in their homes for their icons. Often people have where you pray they the start of the day / where they can see them before they go to sleep at night, but we like having them in our entrance hall too, reminding us to both go and arrive, carrying God with us...

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If you don’t yet have an icon, some would suggest that you start with either an icon of the Savior or Mary holding Christ in her arms. You don’t have to have a hand-painted icon, you can easily get a print of a classic, well known icon. I’m very pragmatic and use anything that appeals to me, the test being: does it help me to pray? I’ve got stones, pieces of wood, various works of art (including physical icons, prints and pictures).

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Keep in mind that an icon is a spiritualized prototype of the person represented. The icon exists to help connect you to God in prayer, for some, through the person depicted in the icon .

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Icons can be placed in many areas of your home. If there is an icon near the table where meals are served, you may want to begin and end your meals by praying and facing the icon while reciting a prayer before or after the meal.

Depending on your place or places of work, an icon can be near you throughout the day — on your desk, over the sink . . . When traveling, you can (as I do) carry a small icon or an icon card (possibly protected by plastic) in your pocket or purse, or on / in your prayerbook.

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During times of prayer, if not for longer periods, a vigil lamp or candle lit in your icon corner may help you pray. A flame is a metaphor for prayer. Its warm flame both encourages prayer and provides the ideal illumination.

I encourage you now to look at the icon, lightly, let yourself react to it, don’t repress of force a reaction, don’t judge your reaction, merely notice it, as you look at the icon, lightly….

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Today's icon is called "The Virgin Hodegetria and Child", and is an iconographic depiction of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary) holding the Child Jesus at her side while pointing to Him as the source of salvation for humankind.

“Hodegetria” is Greek, meaning "She who shows the Way” – in the Western Church this type of icon is sometimes called Our Lady of the Way.

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The most venerated icon of the “Hodegetria” type, regarded as the original, was displayed in the Monastery of the Panaghia Hodegetria in Constantinople, which was built specially to contain it. Unlike most later copies it showed the Theotokos standing full-length. It was said to have been brought back from the Holy Land by Eudocia, the Empress of Theodosius II (408–450), and to have been painted by Saint Luke, the author of Luke / Acts himself. The icon was double-sided, with a crucifixion on the other side, and was "perhaps the most prominent cult object in Byzantium".

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The original icon has probably now been lost, although various traditions claim that it was carried to Russia or Italy. There are a great number of copies of the image, including many of the most venerated of Russian icons, which have themselves acquired their own status and tradition of copying.

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There are a number of images showing the icon in its shrine and in the course of being displayed publicly, which happened every Tuesday, and the icon was one of the great sights of Constantinople for visitors. After the Fourth Crusade, from 1204 to 1261, it was moved to the Monastery of the Pantocrator.

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There are a number of accounts of the weekly display, the two most detailed by Spaniards:

Every Tuesday twenty men come to the church of Maria Hodegetria; they wear long red linen garments, covering up their heads like stalking clothes ... there is a great procession and the men clad in red go one by one up to the icon; the one with whom the icon is pleased is able to take it up as if it weighed almost nothing. He places it on his shoulder and they go chanting out of the church to a great square, where the bearer of the icon walks with it from one side to the other, going fifty times around the square. When he sets it down then others take it up in turn.

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Another account says the bearers staggered around the crowd, the icon seeming to lurch towards onlookers, who were then considered blessed by the Virgin. Clergy touched pieces of cotton-wool to the icon and handed them out to the crowd. A wall-painting in a church near Arta in Greece, shows a great crowd watching such a display, whilst a street-market for unconcerned locals continues in the foreground.

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The icon disappeared during the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.

If you would like to, I invite you (but there is no pressure on you to do this) to look at the icon again, but this time, with an attitude of prayer, ask God to speak to you through it, ask God to show you what God would have you see…

I invite you to resist the temptation to intellectualize the experience, I invite you to just lightly let God guide your thoughts and prayer...

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Allow God to speak to you through what you see, allow God to use and guide your imagination, using images, thoughts, sounds, scents, emotions, memories and feelings, from your conscious or subconscious….

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I now invite you to slowly come back to this room, this time….

I pray that this has been an interesting and enriching experience for you…

AMEN!

Rev Gavin Smith​

SERMON, 26 FEBRUARY 2017 - TRANSFIGURATION

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight: O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.

The Season of Epiphany is about light, about illumination and about revelation.

Across its Sundays we have re-visited and, hopefully, re-discovered the wonder of Our Saviour, Jesus Christ whose birthday we celebrated at Christmas. We’ve revisited how the babe born at Bethlehem is also the light of the world as well as how we as his followers are also called to be light.

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We have been drawn more deeply into an understanding of who and what this infant, who was greeted by shepherds and magi is -- for us and for all the world -- and of our role to share what we have learned.

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In many ways the Christmas message may be described as a tightly, even intricately packaged Christmas gift which takes us the whole of the season of Epiphany to unwrap and discover.

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Today, Transfiguration Sunday draws the season to a close, and Matthew's account provides an almost perfect bookend to the story of the baptism of Jesus.

The Australian Singing Group – The Hillsongs  have

"Transfiguration" as the title of a song from their album – Open Heaven

From the cloud You speak
What was veiled now is seen
Jesus the image of
The invisible God
Divinity confirmed
In the transfigured Word
A kingdom once concealed
On the earth now revealed

Thought provoking lyrics

Google U tube 5m

"Transfiguration" is an unusual word, one that we almost never use in everyday speech.

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Definition of transfiguration Webster

1. 1a :  a change in form or appearance :  metamorphosisb :  an exalting, glorifying, or spiritual change.
2. The word describes the complete change of the form and substance. For example, we use it to describe the change from a caterpillar to a butterfly. Here then we have a complete change in the appearance or form of Jesus in the presence of the disciples. He now was brighter than the light, revealing His true glory to them.

A similar word is used by Paul in Romans 12:1,2, in which he instructs believers to be “transformed” by the renewing of their minds. There is to be a genuine change in the life of the believer.

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Transfiguration Sunday makes clear the relationship of the final Sunday of the Season of Epiphany to the Baptism of our Lord, in the first Sunday in the season, as we are again invited to listen with the crowds (at Jesus' Baptism) and disciples (at the Transfiguration) as a voice from heaven announces, "This is my Son, whom I love; with whom I am well pleased’. In today’s gospel, followed by the powerful injunction : ‘Listen to Him!’

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At the same time, Transfiguration leans unmistakably into Lent, as Jesus comes down from the mountain to head to the death he speaks of during that very descent.

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‘Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.’

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The injunction to "listen to him" addressed to Peter, James, and John will become poignant, perhaps even painful in the weeks ahead as they regularly fail to do just that, or at least fail to understand what they are listening to. And those same words, when taken as being addressed also to us as Jesus' latest disciples, orient us to listen and watch the Lord of Glory approach his destiny in Jerusalem so that we perhaps might more fully comprehend God's purposes and work in Jesus.

As if all this weren't enough, Transfiguration also foreshadows Easter.

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When the disciples fall to the ground in holy awe, the glorified and glowing Jesus comes to them, touches them (elsewhere in Matthew a sign of healing), and commands them not just to stand up but almost literally to "be raised!" Jesus then commands them not to speak of this event until he himself has been raised, this time from death. There is something about this day, this event, that can't be really understood until after the resurrection.

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Our possible confusion about Transfiguration Sunday moves beyond both linguistic and liturgical considerations, as it comes like something out of nowhere, in each gospel playing to a greater or lesser degree a pivotal mark in the narrative (most noticeably in Luke), but not clearly connected to what comes immediately before or after. In Matthew's account, the Transfiguration occurs six days  after Jesus' first prediction of his passion and his rebuke of Peter (presumably) outside Caesarea Philippi  (16:21-23). (Perhaps recalling the six days the cloud enveloped Mount Sinai before the Lord speaks to Moses in today's reading from Exodus) -- It is followed by more passion predictions and the continuing story of Jesus' ministry in and around Galilee and his impending journey to Jerusalem.

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It is nevertheless interesting to see how the account contributes to or advances Matthew's story of Jesus. For this reason, we can probably have a closer look at the details of the account itself. Two of these perhaps deserve particular attention.

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First, Peter's reaction in offering to put up three shelters may seem odd to us, but some New Testament scholars suggest that it is the appropriate cultic response to what is, quite literally, an epiphany, a manifestation of divine presence. Peter wishes to make a booth, a tent, a tabernacle -- perhaps referencing the Jewish festival of Tabernacles – to be able to offer lodging for these historic and significant religious figures. Others see in Peter's suggestion less a cultic response and more the desire to preserve the event, to capture something of the magnificence of the moment. Still others have been struck by this as characteristic of Peter and perhaps many of us: when we meet something way beyond our understanding, our first inclination is to do something, anything! However we read the impetus for Peter's suggestion, it is notable that in Matthew the voice from heaven actually interrupts him, cutting him off in order first to pronounce Jesus blessed and then to command the attention of the disciples. Whatever Peter -- or we -- may have been thinking, there is only one thing that is paramount: to listen to him, the beloved One.

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Secondly, when all is over -- when Moses and Elijah are gone, the voice is quiet, Jesus' face and clothing have returned to normal, and the disciples are left in holy awe -- all that is left is Jesus, just as they have always known him.

Whatever all these signs and symbols may have meant, the disciples are once again with their Lord, their teacher, their friend. This is perhaps one of the signature characteristics of Matthew. Jesus, the one whose clothes and face shone like the sun, the one equal to Moses and Elijah, the one whom the very heavens proclaim as God's own beloved Son, will not leave them.

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When all else fades -- and indeed, soon enough all will become dark indeed -- yet Jesus remains, reaching out in help and healing. At the very close of Matthew's account, he will gather with these and all of his disciples on another mountain, and promise that he will be with them even to the close of the age – the Great Commission.

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The setting in the gospel is also important. After a time of popularity in the northern regions the tide has turned against Jesus. The leaders were busy trying to discredit Him, and the people started going away. This prompted Jesus to ask what people said about Him, and what the disciples said. Now, as He begins to turn towards Jerusalem and His death, He is transfigured before three disciples on the top of the mountain. This should have encouraged the disciples that no matter what happened in Jerusalem, Jesus was the Lord of Glory. Looking back they realized this; but at the time they may not have thought it through. But as far as the arrangement of the gospel goes, it is downhill from here to the valley of humiliation and death.

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In the transfiguration Moses and Elijah appear and talk with the Lord. Moses represents the Law, and Elijah the Prophets;  Moses wrote the Law which anticipated the sacrificial atonement of the Messiah; Elijah was to come to prepare the hearts of the people for the coming of the Lord. Moses went up Mount Sinai and because he was with the Lord of Glory there, his face shone when he came back down; Elijah did not die, but was taken up to glory in the whirlwind and the chariot of fire. Here the two of them speak to Christ, and the parallel accounts tell us they spoke of Jesus’ “departure” (Greek exodus). They spoke of His coming death; but by the term the Bible uses we know they spoke of it as the fulfillment of the great deliverance in Egypt. Jesus’ death would be the exodus from the bondage of sin in the world.

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The vision is now clear: Christ was revealed in His glory, and He was joined by Moses and Elijah to indicate that He was about to fulfill the Law and the Prophets, and that death cannot destroy the glory that will follow. Moses and Elijah were and are alive, and are glorified. Jesus may face death in the days to come, but death in God’s service is the way to glory.

Amen

Roger Lee

FOOTNOTE:

It may be a small point, but it is worth noting that there are two traditions about the location of the Mount of Transfiguration. The Roman Catholic tradition identifies it as Mount Tabor, south of the region of Galilee, on the northern edge of the Jezreel Valley. As one would expect, there are chapels and churches on the top of the mount to commemorate the spot. The other view, and possibly the more likely one, is that Mount Hermon is the site of the transfiguration.1 It is in the far north, located north of where Caesarea Philippi is situated. It would make sense for the transfiguration to take place in that region where Jesus had been ministering and where Peter made his confession of Christ. Of course, there is a week’s time for them to get almost anywhere. But the critical point is that they went up to the place away from all the people. Mount Tabor is not a very large mountain, and it was inhabited at the time.