See https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=591880348 for all the Lectionary readings for the ‘Third Service’, i.e. Mattins, or Morning Prayer, and the ‘Second Service’, Evensong, or Evening Prayer.

First Sermon: for Mattins at St Dochdwy’s Church, Llandough on 8th September 2024

Genocide and Vengeance on Earth: Smells and Bells in Heaven

Ecclesiasticus 27:30 – 28:9, Revelation 8:1-5.

Anger and wrath, these also are abominations,
   yet a sinner holds on to them.

‘Forgive your neighbour the wrong he has done, …

‘Does anyone harbour anger against another,
   and expect healing from the Lord?’

These sentences from our first lesson, which somewhat unusually we have taken from the Apocrypha today, the book called Ecclesiasticus, or the wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach, which is one of the books in the so-called ‘wisdom literature’ in the Bible, like Proverbs and the book which is actually called Wisdom.

The logic of the passage seems to be that you should not retaliate, or exact vengeance against, people who harm you, because if you do, when you meet your maker in heaven, you will be treated the same way. If you won’t forgive people, you won’t be forgiven by the Lord on the day of judgement.

‘Remember the end of your life, and set enmity aside; remember corruption and death, and be true to the commandments.’

And then if you’re wondering what would happen once you’re through the pearly gates, we have some lines from the book of Revelation as a New Testament lesson.

‘Another angel with a golden censer came and stood at the altar; he was given a great quantity of incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar that is before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel.’ You will see that in St John the Divine’s Revelation, the style of worship is definitely one of smells and bells!

But look – let’s just take half a pace back from this. I can elegantly expound on these two readings from the Bible and make some clever links and inferences from them, and give you a thoroughly inspiring message, I would hope. And you would go away thinking, yes, that’s fine. I’ve been inspired, perhaps, to forgive my enemies and I’ve had a glimpse of heaven.

There are people in Anglican and Roman Catholic churches all over the world, certainly wherever they use the Revised Common Lectionary – all getting something like the message that I have just given to you now. Don’t bear grudges, don’t try to retaliate all the time, forgive your neighbour.

And everybody will come out of church feeling good about that. What a great message: straight out of the Sermon on the Mount. Turn the other cheek. Not an eye for an eye. So it turns out that Jesus taught ideas about forgiveness and generosity, and the futility of going for anger and vengeance, which go back much earlier than Jesus himself. They were already in the wisdom literature, and Jesus preached his greatest sermon about them: but – why doesn’t anybody take any notice?

Just think of what’s happening in the Middle East today. The terrible genocide that is happening in Gaza. And it is genocide, if you respect the judgement of the International Court of Justice; although, the Israeli government refuses to accept its findings, despite having made a full case to the Court, presented by experienced top barristers. That is the view of the Court. Genocide is what is going on in Gaza. Genocide, albeit as a result of a terrible crime by Hamas against Israel.

And it’s noticeable that in all the actions that have gone on in and around the Holy Land, the devastation in Gaza, the attacks in the Lebanon on the northern border of Israel, and the killing of a Hamas leader in Iran, in all these cases, it is assumed that there will be retaliation. It is assumed that it will be an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. The argument about it is not about whether it’s okay to retaliate, but about how cataclysmically, how overwhelmingly, you can retaliate.

Maybe, just maybe, we in the church ought to be bolder in pointing out that what we stand for is Jesus’s message of love; and it isn’t a question of an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth. Why on earth have we not done this so far?

In the conflict in Gaza I suspect that, if you said to an Israeli, after the terrorist attack on 7th October, that they shouldn’t try to exact vengeance, I think you might have been met with an argument not about vengeance, but about self-defence.

The Israelis might say, ‘We are not retaliating against Hamas for any other reason than that, if we do not defend ourselves, they want to destroy us’. Although there is a history of pacifism in the history of Christianity, perhaps most notably in recent years among the Quakers, if we look at the last 2000 years, it does look as though the Sermon on the Mount has been modified, pretty thoroughly by the concept of the ‘just war’; which was originally a Roman concept, but then it was taken over by St Augustine of Hippo in the fourth and fifth centuries and then by Thomas Aquinas. The theory of the ‘just war’ has two strains to it, what can justify making war at all, and what is the just way actually to wage war.

According to the theory of the Just War, the use of force should be:

– a last resort, and should be

– proportionate to the evil remedied; it should

– expect to succeed; and it should contribute to

– a new state of peace.

If those conditions are not met, you should not go to war; and then the most important thing while you are conducting a war, is to protect the immunity of non-combatants.

Let’s apply that to the situation in Gaza.

– Is force a last resort?

– Is it proportionate to kill 40,000 Palestinians, and is it

– likely to lead to a new state of peace?

We can talk about this for a long time, but perhaps most strikingly, in the actual conduct of the war, if we take it as read that it was just to go to war, in these circumstances, what about the protection of non-combatants? It seems generally agreed that perhaps up to 80% of those killed in Gaza are non-combatants. Of the 40,000, I understand at least 10,000 were children. 10,000 innocent children. By definition, non-combatants. So should we just sit there and nod sagely when we listen to Bible lessons like we had this morning? What do you think?

‘Anger and wrath, these … are abominations; yet a sinner holds on to them.’ Is that a message for today? If so, what are we going to do about it?

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Second Sermon, for Evensong at St Peter’s, Old Cogan, 8th Sept 2024 – Annihilation and Ostentation

Exodus 14:5-31, Matthew 6:1-18

I really struggled writing this sermon, I want you to know. The rules are that unless there is some very special excuse, you will expect your preacher to be speaking about the Bible lessons earlier on in the service. Perhaps explaining them or drawing lessons from them for our life today: as you know, our lessons are chosen by an ecumenical body called the Consultation on Common Texts, who I think are based in Montréal, who published the Revised Common Lectionary in 1992, which at least in theory all the Anglican churches in the world follow.

All the churches in the Anglican connection are reading the same lessons each Sunday. Exceptionally, a church may decide to develop a theme, departing from the lectionary in order to give a sermon series. We did this at All Saints recently with a sermon series on the Lord’s Prayer. Don’t worry, I am not going to quiz you on what you have learned from the sermons about the Lord’s Prayer!

But I’m finding that the Lectionary is no help for me today – although it is interesting to see that the New Testament lesson actually includes one version of the Lord’s Prayer. I suppose that means that I really ought not to try to deal with that in this sermon!

But do I want to say anything about the Israelites escaping from Egypt through the Red Sea, the parting of the Red Sea and the drowning of the Egyptian army? And what can I say about Jesus talking about being modest in charitable giving? In both cases I’ve got a feeling that there is a real danger that I will just go off into some academic rabbit hole and leave you without much to relate to in your normal life.

The story of the escape from Egypt through the Red Sea is generally reckoned not to be a literal piece of history but more part of the legend of the foundation of the nation of Israel. It’s a demonstration of the power of the Lord, the one true God, the God of the Israelites. They get away from slavery in Egypt not really through anything they have done themselves but because God ordered it, either directly or through his prophet Moses.

So far, so good! But should we risk trying to draw parallels with contemporary life? The Israelites escaped from Egypt and went to settle outside. Although we don’t hear about it in the passage that we are reading today, they displaced people who were already living in those places.

You will remember that Saul was ordered by God actually to destroy the people of Amalek, the Amalekites, the people that the Israelites encountered first after the crossing of the Red Sea. ‘Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.’ That’s from the first book of Samuel, chapter 15, and as you will remember, Saul didn’t actually wipe them all out, and God was very angry as a result.

What is this theology? Surely we don’t believe in a God who would do what God is supposed to have done to the Egyptians, or who would have ordered Saul so cruelly to wipe out the Amalekites. This is dangerous stuff. Mr Netanyahu, the current Israeli prime minister, when he was talking about the war on Hamas, likened it to Amalek.

The real tragedy is that the Israeli army does not seem to distinguish between the normal inhabitants of Gaza, the normal Palestinian civilians, and the freedom fighters or terrorists, depending on your point of view, belonging to Hamas. Perhaps it is better to regard it as a picturesque story and to go back to the scholarly discussion about where the story actually came from, tracing the evidence of the different authors in Exodus and their different takes on the main narrative.

In the crossing of the Red Sea, you can see, if you look closely, that there are two different threads, expressing the story differently which shows that it has been written down from several sources. If you read our lesson again slowly, you’ll see that at one point ‘the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, and made the sea dry land’, and the Egyptians’ chariots got bogged down, and the sea returned when the morning came: or, in the same passage, Moses stretched out his hand, and parted the waters; the Egyptians followed the Israelites, and when they were half-way over, the Lord told Moses to stretch out his hand again, and the waters returned and drowned the Egyptians. Two different stories.

But they’re not meant to be history. They simply illustrate the power of God. But is God really like that? Surely not. So I am forced to tell you that I don’t recommend anything much in the Old Testament lesson today, as a precept for a good life, except perhaps the conclusion, that God of Israel is all-powerful, and to be respected. I caution you against taking it too literally to support aggressive Zionism, which I think you will agree with me, is not a good thing.

Perhaps we are better off concentrating on the tail end of the Sermon on the Mount in Saint Matthew, and not making a fuss about charitable giving. I’m not quite sure how one is supposed to reconcile what Jesus says with charity auctions and fundraising dinners, where almost by definition people are parading their generosity – and does that really matter?

I would’ve thought that the most important thing was to be generous and not get too hung up on what the optics are, what it looks like. Oh well – maybe it’s time for another sermon series!