14-february-2016-lent-1-sermon-preached-by-mr-antony-weiss

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A sermon preached by Mr Antony Weiss The First Sunday in Lent – Solemn Evensong Christ Church St Laurence – Sunday 14th February, 2016

Jonah 3; Luke 18:9-18

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

(Ps 19:14). AMEN. From the Holy Gospel According to St Luke: “[Jesus] also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others.” (Luke 18:9) Both Bible readings this evening present us with so called ‘righteous’ and ‘despised others’.

In our Second Lesson, from St Luke, there’s the familiar parable of the ‘righteous’ Pharisee who praying prominently in the temple in an almost self-congratulatory affectation uses the first person pronoun ‘I’ five times. The Pharisee appears not to be warmed by the love of God evident by his disregard for his lowly sinning tax-payer fellow worshipper, “‘God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector….” (Lk 18: 11) By contrast, “… the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’” who “went down to his house justified rather than the other” (Lk 18:13-14).

Then from the first reading we have Jonah, a righteous devout descendant of Israel who, you will recall, had pigheadedly attempted to flee from God (Jon. 1) finding himself in the belly of the fish from where his prayer for deliverance is answered “And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land” (Jon.2:10). God persisted with Jonah, ‘Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.”

So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord.’ (Jon. 3: 1-3a) obeying God, bringing the call to repentance to Nineveh from their wickedness.

For Jonah, a descendant of Abraham, God’s Covenantal race, the thought of bringing the message of grace and redemption to the despised sinful pagans of Nineveh was abhorrent. There existed a real sense of entitlement for Jonah and the people of the Israel; God’s grace and blessing was to be theirs alone wasn’t it? Was it not only Israel alone which received the Passover? Wasn’t it only Israel which possessed the Tent of the Meeting and later the Temple thus having the presence of God amongst them?

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Yet didn’t the people of Israel reject God’s grace and the law, sinning endlessly, idol making and turning their hearts to evil ways? The Bible and human history are inundated with rebellion to God. God’s people did then and continue to live in mutiny to the Creator all nations are called to worship and adore.

But what we learn is that God has worked through the ‘despised’ in Jonah Chapter 3 and they have responded when presented with the Gospel of Grace by Jonah as God’s agent.

Through the ministry of Jonah the king of Nineveh proclaims ‘“…let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence which is in his hands. Who knows, God may yet repent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we perish not?” (Jon.3:8b-9) And the result? God shows mercy to the penitent, “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God repented of the evil which He had said he would do to them; and He did not do it.” (Jon.3:10) But why? Could it be that God’s purpose of turning His hand to the heart of paganism at Nineveh gave His people Israel a much needed wakeup call? From the times of Moses we read from Deuteronomy about the Israelites (as pertinent to mankind today); “They have stirred me to jealousy with what is no god; they have provoked me with their idols. So I will stir them to jealousy with those who are no people; I will provoke them with a foolish nation.” (Deut. 32:21). And that ‘foolish nation’ in the Book of Jonah includes the citizens of Nineveh.

Through Jonah God demonstrates to His people Israel that He seeks to redeem the rueful and contrite.

Putting this in a modern-day perspective the world, especially Christendom in the West is also getting a much needed jolt. The Church is waning in established heartlands of the faith with Europe, America and indeed in our own nation turning away from God in droves.

Last Tuesday at the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court Palace, where almost 450 years after the Act of Supremacy, which declared the Tudor King Henry VIII as the supreme head of the Church of England and formalised the break with Rome, England’s most senior Roman Catholic cleric Cardinal Vincent Nichols celebrated Vespers (largely in Latin) in the presence of The Bishop of London, the Right Reverend Richard Chartres. In response to this historic acts of Christian unity the two leaders lamented that practising Christians are now a “minority” in the UK, an indictment on the state of Christianity in Britain with only two in five British people now identifying as Christian.

Europe is being inundated with refugees including from war-torn places such as Syria and Iraqi towns like Mosul, modern day Nineveh by people who are “despised by others.” Could it be that today God is seeking to give the once-Christian West a necessary jar, like he did to Israel by saving Nineveh, calling

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men and women of the Faith to reach out to the despised and rejected in love and grace as God does for us?

Reflecting on these readings through the course of the week and attending the Stations of the Cross on Friday evening, have been personally timely and humbling. The Lesson from St Luke presents us with great Pauline doctrine of justification by faith as expressed in Article XI of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion that “We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not by our own works or deservings.”

Moreover I have also been chastened by Our Lord’s words recorded in that same Gospel, ‘He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others.’ (Luke 18:9). I am loved by family and friends, I feel connected to my community, I had the privilege of attending and teaching at fine schools, having had a university education and am now studying at a renowned Theological College and serving at this active Anglo-Catholic parish. Am I self-satisfied like the Pharisee in the Temple who prays the prayer, “‘God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector...’” (Lk 18:11b) being one who trusts so much in oneself that I shun others? Am I not likely to be caught up in all the rights, power and privileges my circumstances have afforded me? Brothers and sisters I dare say that I am and that I am not alone. CS Lewis feeling that he too faced a similar peril wrote the poem, “The Apologist’s Evening Prayer” in which he asks God to deliver him from affectation and pretence while praying that he might defend the faith while trusting in grace. I have found it helpful and my prayer is that you do too…

The Apologist’s Evening Prayer

By CS Lewis From all my lame defeats and oh! much more From all the victories that I seemed to score; From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh; From all my proofs of Thy divinity, Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.

Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.

From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee, O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.

Lord of the narrow gate and the needle’s eye, Take from me all my trumpery lest I die. +In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

AMEN