Sermons
29th April 2007 - Easter 4
Being a priest has many advantages. First, I get to celebrate the Mass, I live in a lovely house, I am allowed a very privileged access to people’s lives often in their most vulnerable periods, and I sometimes get a free drink at the Colton Arms (only the first one). I also, very often get stopped by strangers in the street who might need a bit of a helping hand or some guidance or somebody to shout at. All these things happen because the priest is recognisable and the recognition always comes with preconceptions.
Yesterday, unusually I was working at home wearing normal clothes when two people came to the door, I had no symbols or clothes that marked me out as a priest, quite the reverse. One of the people at the door was carrying a Bible which I thought was a very bad sign indeed. She said in an American accent ‘we are sharing a message of good news with the people of your street today’ (and my suspicions were confirmed). I said
‘but this is the Vicarage’. No response. ‘And I am the vicar’, still nothing. ‘The vicar of that church there’. ‘Ah’ she said ‘so I suppose you’ve already got the message’. It felt rather odd not being recognised. I remember a similar experience just after I was ordained, one day going around a supermarket thinking how nice it was that everyone said good morning or hello and then going the next day in civvies and thinking how strange it was that everyone was staring at me with suspicion when I greeted them cheerfully.
Recognising who somebody is, is a much more complex matter than it might appear. Identity is quite a slippery concept, really. At what point would you say you really know who somebody is? When you have remembered their name? When you know what job they do? When you remember what it is that annoys you about them? We have lots of shorthand labels and titles to describe people, of course, but how many people could we really claim to know?
Reaching for titles or labels is normally a sign that we don’t really know somebody, and throughout the gospels various groups of people and individuals use labels and titles to describe Jesus, often revealing that they don’t really know who he is. In today’s gospel reading the leaders of the Jewish people gather menacingly around Jesus and ask him ‘How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.’
Their question really means ‘are you the sort of Messiah that we are after? the sort we have in mind? Are you the liberating new king, the one who is to overthrow the rule of the Romans? Remember, this little encounter takes place at the time of the festival of the Dedication, when Jews celebrated a previous revolution under Judas Maccabaeus, a revolution that had got rid of the last lot of foreign rulers. They want to know if Jesus fits their bill. It is as if they dare Jesus to reveal his identity so that they can publicly show that he is nothing of the sort.
But his reply is not the one they want to hear. Jesus tells them firstly, that they already have had all the information they need about his identity, and secondly that they have the evidence of his miraculous works to back up that information. It isn’t as if his teaching has been ambiguous or the signs and wonders insufficient. But there is something much more important than these two paths that might be aids to recognising who Jesus is, there is more to this sort of recognition than being convinced by a display of supernatural power or by a proclamation of identity. Jesus tells them that this question is not really about his own character and identity, but about the character and identity of those asking the question. For the questioners to recognise who Jesus really is, their own characters and identities are going to have to be reconfigured.
And, in this, we perhaps find ourselves from time to time in the same position as those questioners, wondering about the identity of this Messiah, whose mission to bring in the kingdom seemed to have ended in the ignominy of the cross, and whose presence in the world through the Holy Spirit fails to prevent the world appearing very unlike the kingdom that was proclaimed by him.
In his answer, Jesus transcends the use of labels and titles, he explodes the categories that the Jewish leaders want to trap him with. It is not only that has he given them information in abundance and works to behold, what actually prevents them recognising who he is the questioners own lack of belief ‘you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep’. The questioners in the end have to realise that they have declined the invitation to follow Jesus, and that tells us something very significant about Jesus and about God. How frequently in our lives, even as Christians, we fail to accept the invitation God offers us over and over again to follow him. How many times God offers a new start, or an opportunity to love him more deeply, or a chance to turn away from a recurring sin, or fresh possibilities to act out our Christian faith through loving others. And how often we decline to recognise the divine voice of guidance, to recognise Jesus for who he is. Like the questioners in today’s gospel, the identity of Jesus only becomes a reality to us when we allow ourselves, our characters and identities, to be reconfigured. Not through amassing information about Christianity or by pondering the great miracles of Jesus’ ministry, but by coming into a relationship of recognition through the transforming of our identities. Remember another enquirer in the gospels, Nicodemus. He came to Jesus with plenty of information about who Jesus was saying ‘We know that you are a teacher who has come from God’ only to be told by Jesus that he would need to born again, born a second time from above.
Whenever I prepare candidates for confirmation there is always a great hunger for information…when was the Bible written, what does the church believe about this or that, how do we know the stories in the Bible are true or how do we know the stories in the Bible are false etc etc? And this thirst for knowledge is good. Information can deepen one’s understanding of the faith greatly, but it must always be gathered through a period of transformation. No amount of information or evidence will convince everyone of the truth of Christianity otherwise everyone would be a Christian, it would be obvious, in the same way that everyone eats, everyone would believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. But the God revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is a God who is known not solely through information, but through transformation. He is a God constantly and lovingly offering us the invitation to follow his Son. Take up the invitation afresh today, allow your identity to be transformed, God is already at work in your heart, you need only turn to him with faith and you will recognise his voice.