Dreaming dreams and being obedient to God’s promises

The Dream of Joseph, Georges de la Tour (1593-1652)

Patrick Comerford

Christ Church Cathedral,

Sunday 22 December (The Fourth Sunday of Advent)

8.30 a.m., Said Eucharist (the Lady Chapel).

Isaiah 7: 10-16; Psalm 80: 1-7, 17-19; Romans 1: 1-7; Matthew 1: 18-25.

Matthew 1: 18-25

18 Τοῦ δὲ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἡ γένεσις οὕτως ἦν. μνηστευθείσης τῆς μητρὸς αὐτοῦ Μαρίας τῷ Ἰωσήφ, πρὶν ἢ συνελθεῖν αὐτοὺς εὑρέθη ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχουσα ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου. 19 Ἰωσὴφ δὲ ὁ ἀνὴρ αὐτῆς, δίκαιος ὢν καὶ μὴ θέλων αὐτὴν δειγματίσαι, ἐβουλήθη λάθρᾳ ἀπολῦσαι αὐτήν. 20 ταῦτα δὲ αὐτοῦ ἐνθυμηθέντος ἰδοὺ ἄγγελος κυρίου κατ' ὄναρ ἐφάνη αὐτῷ λέγων, Ἰωσὴφ υἱὸς Δαυίδ, μὴ φοβηθῇς παραλαβεῖν Μαρίαν τὴν γυναῖκά σου, τὸ γὰρ ἐν αὐτῇ γεννηθὲν ἐκ πνεύματός ἐστιν ἁγίου: 21 τέξεται δὲ υἱὸν καὶ καλέσεις τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦν, αὐτὸς γὰρ σώσει τὸν λαὸν αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν αὐτῶν. 22 Τοῦτο δὲ ὅλον γέγονεν ἵνα πληρωθῇ τὸ ῥηθὲν ὑπὸ κυρίου διὰ τοῦ προφήτου λέγοντος,

23 Ἰδοὺ ἡ παρθένος ἐν γαστρὶ ἕξει καὶ τέξεται υἱόν,
καὶ καλέσουσιν τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἐμμανουήλ,

ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον Μεθ' ἡμῶν ὁ θεός. 24 ἐγερθεὶς δὲ ὁ Ἰωσὴφ ἀπὸ τοῦ ὕπνου ἐποίησεν ὡς προσέταξεν αὐτῷ ὁ ἄγγελος κυρίου καὶ παρέλαβεν τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ: 25 καὶ οὐκ ἐγίνωσκεν αὐτὴν ἕως οὗ ἔτεκεν υἱόν: καὶ ἐκάλεσεν τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦν.

18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ 22 All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

23 ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel’,

which means, ‘God is with us.’ 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

May I speak to you in the name + of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Our readings this morning [22 December 2013] bring us into the last week of Advent. Christmas is upon us, most of the presents have been bought, most of the cards have been sent, most of the trees are up and dressed, and the last of the purple candles on the Advent Wreath is being lit at the Sung Eucharist later this morning.

This last candle represents the Virgin Mary, and in most cathedrals and churches this morning, Mary is likely to be the heroic figure in sermons focusing on our Gospel reading.

Those sermons are likely to talk about Mary and her obedience, Mary’s “Yes.” And Joseph may be pushed to the side of the stage. He says “Yes” too, but he says it silently; he has no scripted lines; he has no dramatic part or role; he is mute; but he is obedient. And, like Joseph, his namesake in the Old Testament who is named in the Psalm (Psalm 80: 1-7, 17-19), he too is dreamer of dreams and a doer of deeds.

Saint Matthew’s nativity story lacks the romantic images we have with Saint Luke, whose heady mixture of heavenly angels and earthy shepherds is missing.

Instead, the hope of all the earth takes shape under the sign of arrangements being made for a betrothal that is apparently violated. The gifts of God’s grace and the promise of God’s reign are hidden, are to be searched for and are to be found in the midst of what appears be a very tawdry story.

I imagine Mary may have been a mere teenager at the time, just 14 or 15. And, like so many other teenage brides, she turns up for her wedding – pregnant! Joseph knows he could not possibly be the father. He decides quietly drop out of the arrangement.

If Joseph goes ahead, then this child is going to be known in his family, among his neighbours, perhaps by everyone who needs to know, as illegitimate for the rest of his life.

These fears and sneers, those social judgments and wagging fingers, must have been running rapidly through Joseph like a nightmare. Yet the angel of Joseph’s dream makes a startling suggestion. He tells him to marry Mary, and then he is to name the child. To take on naming the child means becoming his father. And this suggested not as a nice thing to do, or a courteous thing to do, or a gallant or gentlemanly sort of thing to do. Joseph is told why: “You are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (verse 21).

It is not a promise of immediate reward. Joseph is not offered the promise that if he behaves like this he is going to earn some Brownie points towards the forgiveness of his own sins; that God will see him as a nice guy; or even that if he lives long enough this child may grow up, be apprenticed to him, take over the family business, and act as a future pension plan.

Instead, the promised pay-off is for others as yet unknown. “He will save his people from their sins.” The forgiveness spoken of here is spoken of in apocalyptic terms. It is the declaration of a new future. To be forgiven is to receive a future. Forgiveness breaks the simple link between cause and effect, action and reaction, failure and disaster, rebellion and recrimination.

It is the fulfilment of the ancient prophecy, Matthew declares (verse 22): the hope of all the ages, the beginning of the end of all the old tyrannies, the restoration of everything that is and will be, was always meant to take place in a virgin’s womb, in the manger, on the cross.

That is Advent. It is a time of expectation, repentance and forgiveness. It is a time of preparation, anticipation and hope. It is a time for dreaming dreams, and putting behind us all our nightmares.

The dream in our Gospel reading is the dream of Joseph, not Mary’s dream. In Saint Matthew’s Gospel, the angel appears not to Mary, but to Joseph.

Joseph dreamed something wonderful. God would enter the world; God would be born to his new, young wife, Mary. But to believe this, Joseph had to trust not only his dream, but to trust Mary, to trust the future child, to trust God.

Do you love the people you trust and trust the people you love?

To trust Mary, Joseph must have truly loved Mary. But trust in this predicament must have gone beyond trust. Joseph must have truly glimpsed what it is to trust God, to have hope in God, to love God, to have faith in God.

Joseph dreams a dream not of his own salvation, but of the salvation of the world.

Do you trust that God is working through the people you love? Do you trust that God is working through people you find it difficult not to love but merely to like … working through God’s people for their salvation?

Too often we forget about poor Joseph. Every year, we tend to focus on the story of Mary. But this morning we are told the annunciation is an event not just for Mary, but for Joseph too. And they both say “Yes.”

Joseph has a second dream and faithfully responds to God’s call a second time

And Joseph says a second Yes too. Later in this Gospel, in the Lectionary reading for next Sunday, the First Sunday of Christmas, we read:

Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son’ (Matthew 2: 13-15).

Joseph listens, God sends a messenger again, Joseph dreams again, and he remains true to God, he answers God’s call.

Joseph has no speaking part; he just has a walk-on part in this drama. But his actions, his obedience to God’s call, speak louder than words.

Yes, God appears over and over again, to men, women, to “all sorts and conditions of people.”

But do we trust them?

Can you have faith in someone else?

Can you believe their dreams?

Can you believe the dreams of those you love?

And dream their dreams too?

As Dean Samuel G. Candler of Saint Philip’s Episcopal Cathedral in Atlanta, Georgia, suggests in a sermon on this Sunday six years ago: “Believe in the dreams of the person you love. Believe in dreams this Christmas, and Jesus will be born again. Believe in dreams this Christmas, and God will appear. Amen.”

The Gospels are silent about the intimate details of Joseph. But then, Joseph too is silent in the Gospels. I sometimes thought Joseph was the worst part to play in the school nativity play … a walk-on part, but no lines to say.

Joseph has no speaking parts at all. All we know is he lived in Nazareth in Galilee before the birth of Christ (Luke 2: 4).

Joseph does not speak. Instead, Joseph dreams and Joseph listens.

He listens to the angel who tells him not to divorce Mary (Matthew 1: 20-21), and does what the angel of the Lord tells him (Matthew 1: 24).

When the law commands it, Joseph takes his pregnant wife to Bethlehem (Luke 2: 4), and the child is born there.

After the birth of Christ, Joseph listens to an angel in another dream – and, silently, he does as he is told, and without mumbling or grumbling gets up and takes the Mother and Child into Egypt (Matthew 2: 13-14).

When Herod dies, Joseph is told by the angel in yet another dream to return with Mary and Jesus from Egypt (Matthew 2: 19-21).

Then Joseph learns in a fourth dream Herod Archelaus is in power in Judea, and he is warned in a dream to move to Galilee. And so, Joseph takes the mother and child to Nazareth and they settle there (Matthew 2: 21-23).

The last time Joseph appears is when the family visits the Temple in Jerusalem when Jesus is about 12 (Luke 2: 41-52). Bu there is no mention ever again of Joseph.

Did he hear Jesus preach in the synagogue?

Did he see him heal?

Was he too at the Wedding at Cana?

Well, we do not know.

Like his namesake Joseph in the Old Testament, Joseph in the Gospels is a dreamer. Most dreamers are good on ideas but weak on delivery, dreamers but not doers. But Joseph in this morning’s Gospel is both a dreamer and a doer.

What if Joseph had rolled over and had another 40 winks after each of those dreams? What if Joseph said No at each turn?

At different times, we’ve all pondered Mary’s potential “No” at each turn. But, what if Joseph said No, had divorced Mary, left Jesus to be brought up by a single mother?

What if Joseph decided to stay at home and Jesus was born in Nazareth?

What if Joseph had ignored the warning and stayed on in Bethlehem, so that the new-born child was found by Herod’s troops hunting down all the new-born children?

What if Mary and Jesus moved back from Egypt to Bethlehem or Jerusalem, and became victims of the murderous schemes of Herod Archelaus?

What if Joseph and Mary had failed to find the teenage Jesus when he got lost in the Temple?

What if?

We often think that dreamers need to take their heads out of the clouds and get their feet back firmly on the ground. We often think that those who have little to say have little to contribute.

Joseph proves how wrong we can be. Joseph is a dreamer and Joseph is a doer. Joseph plays a key role in the great story of salvation. Does it matter what he does afterwards? No. It just matters that he did what he was asked to do. We leave the rest to Christ.

And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Collect

God our redeemer,
who prepared the blessed Virgin Mary
to be the mother of your Son:
Grant that, as she looked for his coming as our saviour,
so we may be ready to greet him
when he comes again as our judge;
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer

Heavenly Father,
you have given us a pledge of eternal redemption.
Grant that we may always eagerly celebrate
the saving mystery of the incarnation of your Son.
We ask this through him whose coming is certain,
whose day draws near,
your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This sermon was prepared for the Said Eucharist in the Lady Chapel, Christ Church Cathedral, on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, 22 December 2013.

Waiting for Christmas: high expectations or disappointments?

Salome visiting Saint John the Baptist in Prison, Francesco Barbieri (Il Guernico)

Patrick Comerford

Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin,

Sunday 15 December 2013,

The Third Sunday of Advent (Gaudete Sunday).

8. 30 a.m., Said Eucharist (The Lady Chapel).

Isaiah 35: 1-10; Psalm 146: 4-10; James 5: 7-10; and Matthew 11: 2-11.

May I speak to you in the name of + the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Today, the Third Sunday of Advent, is commonly known as Gaudete Sunday, from the Latin word Gaudete (“Rejoice”), the first word of the traditional introit of this day’s Liturgy:

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.”

On Gaudete Sunday, on the Advent wreath, the rose-coloured or pink candle is lit and the readings emphasise the joyous anticipation of the Lord’s coming.

In our Old Testament reading (Isaiah 35: 1-10), the Prophet Isaiah foretells:

● the restoration of the land to fertility
● the end of human suffering and sickness
● the restoration of hope and justice
● the joyful return of the exiles from captivity.

The Psalm (Psalm 146: 5-10) echoes the theme of restoration, focussing especially on God’s justice.

The Epistle reading (James 5: 7-10) is encouragement to keep faith in the coming kingdom in the midst of suffering and injustice in this world. Saint James tells us to be patient in suffering like the prophets.

The Gospel reading (Matthew 11: 2-11), like the third, pink candle on the Advent Wreath, is a reminder of Saint John the Baptist.

We already meet Saint John the Baptist by the banks of the River Jordan in the Gospel reading last Sunday (Matthew 3: 1-12, 8 December 2013).

Have you ever wondered why John the Baptist in this morning’s Gospel reading appears not to know who Jesus is? Is this not the same John who leaped with joy in his mother’s womb when he realised he was in the presence of the unborn Christ (see Luke 1: 44)?

As John waits in prison, about to lose his head, did he wonder whether he made a mistake in thinking Jesus is the Messiah? Is he feeling discouraged and doubtful when he sends messengers to ask Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

In his answer, Christ points Saint John, the messengers and the crowd to the signs of the Kingdom. Echoing the Prophet Isaiah, he points out that the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the lepers are healed, the dead are raised and the poor receive good news.

Is it possible that Saint John was expecting for the wrong kind of Messiah?

When Saint John’s disciples return and tell him what Christ has told them, does Saint John conclude that Jesus is not the Messiah he has been waiting for?

How often have you waited expectantly – for Christmas, for a Christmas present, for a new job, for a major family milestone, for the move to a new home – only to face the realisation that your expectation has been unfulfilled? Another pair of socks? The wrong job with low pay, high expectations and bad conditions? The family milestone upstaged by a family crisis? The new home has horrid neighbours? Is the person I loved so many years ago really the person I live with now?

Picture Vladimir and Estragon in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, lonely and empty by the side of the road, waiting forever for Godot who never arrives.

Picture Eleanor Rigby in the lyrics of the Beatles, waiting alone at the window, alone among the lonely people.

Picture Saint John the Baptist, waiting in a cell where he has been imprisoned by Herod the Great.

Now he is tired. He has grown discouraged. He is questioning. He is dispirited, he has questions, and he has doubts.

What happened to the John the Baptist who hailed Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world?

Of course, I do not agree with those who argue that Saint John the Baptist now doubts whether Jesus is truly the Christ. It is not Saint John the Baptist who is a reed swaying in the wind, blown about by the happenings of the world and the persecution he now faces. It is the people who went to see him who are now being told they are like reeds swaying in the wind.

Saint John knows that Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Saint Jerome says that Saint John, who is about to be put to death by Herod, sends his disciples to Christ so that they have the opportunity of seeing his signs and wonders so they might believe in him (Jerome, Catena Aurea, Matthew 11: 2-6).

By sending them to question Christ about his mission, Saint John the Baptist offers his disciples the opportunity to become true disciples of Christ. This is the opinion of Saint Hilary, Saint Chrysostom, Saint Cyril and many other patristic writers.

When we are disappointed, when our expectations of the coming Kingdom are dashed, is it because we are not looking for the signs of the Kingdom that are all around us?

The gift of Christ is precious, but does it always meet our expectations?

Are we prepared to look around and notice new places where Christ is working and living? If you were told: “Go and tell John what you see and hear,” where would you say you see and hear Christ at work today?

And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Collect:

O Lord Jesus Christ,
who at your first coming sent your messenger
to prepare your way before you:
Grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries
may likewise so prepare and make ready your way
by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,
that at your second coming to judge the world
we may be found an acceptable people in your sight;
for you are alive and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
one God, world without end.

Post Communion Prayer:

Father,
we give you thanks for these heavenly gifts.
Kindle us with the fire of your Spirit
that when Christ comes again
we may shine as lights before his face;
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor, Trinity College Dublin. This reflection was prepared for the Said Eucharist in the Lady Chapel in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on Sunday 15 December 2013.

Matthew 11: 2-11, wondering who Christ is, or waiting for another?

Saint John the Baptist in Prison, Juan Fernandez de Navarrete (1526-1579)

Patrick Comerford

The Sunday after next [15 December 2013] is the Third Sunday of Advent. In the liturgical calendar of the Western Church, including the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, the Lutheran Churches, and other mainline Protestant churches, it is popularly known as Gaudete Sunday.

The day takes its common name from the Latin word Gaudete (“Rejoice”), the first word of the introit of this day’s Liturgy:

Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete. Modestia vestra nota sit omnibus hominibus: Dominus enim prope est. Nihil solliciti sitis: sed in omni oratione petitiones vestræ innotescant apud Deum. Benedixisti Domine terram tuam: avertisti captivitatem Jacob.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Let your forbearance be known to all, for the Lord is near at hand; have no anxiety about anything, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. Lord, you have blessed your land; you have turned away the captivity of Jacob (see Philippians 4: 4–6; Psalm 85: 1).

Throughout Advent, the spirit of the Liturgy is one of expectation and preparation for Christmas and for the coming of Christ. Gaudete Sunday in Advent is a counterpart to Laetare Sunday in Lent, and provides a similar break about mid-way through the season of preparation, and signifies the joy and gladness as the Lord’s coming comes nearer and nearer.

On Gaudete Sunday, rose-coloured vestments may be worn instead of violet or Sarum blue, and this is noted as an option in the Church of England in Common Worship.

On the Advent wreath, the rose-coloured or pink candle is lit in addition to the two violet or blue candles, which represent the first two Sundays of Advent. The readings emphasise the joyous anticipation of the Lord’s coming.

We have started Year A in the readings in the Revised Common Lectionary, and the readings for Gaudete Sunday this year are: Isaiah 35: 1-10; Psalm 146: 4-10 or the Canticle Magnificat; James 5: 7-10; and Matthew 11: 2-11.

In our Bible study this morning we are looking at the Gospel reading for that morning.

Κατα Ματθαιον ιʹαʹ 2-11

2 Ὁ δὲ Ἰωάννης ἀκούσας ἐν τῷ δεσμωτηρίῳ τὰ ἔργα τοῦ Χριστοῦ πέμψας διὰ τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ 3 εἶπεν αὐτῷ, Σὺ εἶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος ἢ ἕτερον προσδοκῶμεν; 4 καὶ ἀποκριθεὶς ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν αὐτοῖς, Πορευθέντες ἀπαγγείλατε Ἰωάννῃ ἃ ἀκούετε καὶ βλέπετε: 5 τυφλοὶ ἀναβλέπουσιν καὶ χωλοὶ περιπατοῦσιν, λεπροὶ καθαρίζονται καὶ κωφοὶ ἀκούουσιν, καὶ νεκροὶ ἐγείρονται καὶ πτωχοὶ εὐαγγελίζονται: 6 καὶ μακάριός ἐστιν ὃς ἐὰν μὴ σκανδαλισθῇ ἐν ἐμοί.

7 Τούτων δὲ πορευομένων ἤρξατο ὁ Ἰησοῦς λέγειν τοῖς ὄχλοις περὶ Ἰωάννου, Τί ἐξήλθατε εἰςτὴν ἔρημον θεάσασθαι; κάλαμον ὑπὸ ἀνέμου σαλευόμενον; 8 ἀλλὰ τί ἐξήλθατε ἰδεῖν; ἄνθρωπον ἐν μαλακοῖς ἠμφιεσμένον; ἰδοὺ οἱ τὰ μαλακὰ φοροῦντες ἐν τοῖς οἴκοις τῶν βασιλέων εἰσίν. 9 ἀλλὰ τί ἐξήλθατε ἰδεῖν; προφήτην; ναί, λέγω ὑμῖν,καὶ περισσότερον προφήτου. 10 οὗτός ἐστιν περὶ οὗ γέγραπται,

Ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ἀποστέλλω τὸν ἄγγελόν μου πρὸ προσώπου σου,
ὃς κατασκευάσει τὴν ὁδόν σου ἔμπροσθέν σου.

11 ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, οὐκ ἐγήγερται ἐν γεννητοῖς γυναικῶν μείζων Ἰωάννου τοῦ βαπτιστοῦ: ὁ δὲ μικρότερος ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τῶν οὐρανῶν μείζων αὐτοῦ ἐστιν.

Matthew 11: 2-11

2 When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’ 4 Jesus answered them, ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. 6 And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.’

7 As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: ‘What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? 8 What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. 9 What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10 This is the one about whom it is written,

“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.”

11 Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.’

Putting the readings in context:

Isaiah 35: 1-10, Each Sunday during Advent this year, we are reading from the Prophet Isaiah. In this reading, the prophet foretells:

● the restoration of the land to fertility
● the end of human suffering and sickness
● the restoration of hope and justice
● the joyful return of the exiles from captivity.

The exiles shall be restored, and the “desert shall ... blossom,” the fertility of Lebanon, Carmel and Sharon will be given to them as a sign of God’s favour and glory. The land once given over to wild beasts, including jackals and lions, will be cultivated once again, and the barren land will bloom.

Human life will be transformed, with the end of infirmity and disability. The feeble, the blind, the deaf, the lame and the speechless shall be restored, along with the restoration of justice and the return of hope. Waters and streams will make the land fertile again.

Finally, the exiles, who have been captives in Babylon, will return on a “Holy Way” (verse 8) or a “highway” in safety (verse 9) to “Zion” (verse 10), the holy city, and there once again they will worship God in the Temple.

But all of these are not ends in themselves, for they are signs of and point to the hope that God’s rule is being restored and that his favour rests on his people.

Psalm 146: 5-10, This psalm echoes the theme of restoration we have read about in Isaiah, focussing especially on God’s justice. This is one of the Hallelujah psalms at the end of the Psalter, which contain a series of hymns of praise, each with a call to worship, a statement of the purpose for praising God, and a renewed summons to praise. These Psalms all begin and end with the word Hallelujah, which is translated in the NRSV: “Praise the Lord.”

In contrast to human rulers, God’s reign is just. Those who trust in God are happy or blessed and have “hope.” This psalm sings of God’s justice expressed in his care and action on behalf of the defenceless, the oppressed, the hungry, prisoners, the blind, the weak or humiliated, strangers, orphans and widows. When these are cared for, it is a sign of God’s just reign, and he is to be praised: “Praise the Lord!”

James 5: 7-10, Praying for the Messiah to come is a daily part of prayer in Judaism. At the heart of the Jewish prayer life is a prayer knows as the Amidah (18 Blessings). It is often said three times a day, and includes: “The offspring of your servant David may you speedily cause to flourish …” The Yigdal, which is part of daily morning prayers in many congregations, focuses on the 13 Articles Of Faith that Maimonides says every Jew should believe in. The Yigdal inspired Thomas Olivers’s hymn, The God of Abraham praise (Irish Church Hymnal, 5th ed, No 323). The twelfth principle of the Yigdal prays: “I believe with complete faith in the coming of the Messiah. And though he may tarry, I shall wait anticipating his arrival each day.”

Early Christians anticipated Christ’s return, the second coming, believing it was imminent and would be immediate, and that with it would come the Kingdom of God. Its delay – the tarrying of the Messiah’s advent – caused some difficulties and even some disputes in the apostolic church. Here, the Apostle James warns his readers not to be impatient. This impatience may lead to grumbling and division within the church, which will bring judgment, for with the second coming of Christ comes also the judgment of God. The second coming is a two-edged sword: its arrival is a comfort for and a warning to Christians (see Proverbs 5: 4; Hebrews 4: 12; Revelation 1: 16; Revelation 2: 12).

Instead, Saint James tells us to be patient in suffering like the prophets, to bide our time like the farmer who plants his crop knowing the rains will come in due time (verse 7). In the same way, the Kingdom is near (verse 8) – it may appear to be tarrying, but it will come in its own time. Though it may tarry, our impatience will not hasten its coming. But we can anticipate its arrival each day with complete faith.

The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, Caravaggio

The Gospel reading, Matthew 11: 2-11

The Third Sunday of Advent is associated with Saint John the Baptist. The first purple candle on the Advent Wreath on the First Sunday of Advent reminds us of the Patriarchs; the second purple candle, on the Second Sunday of Advent, recalls the Prophets; the third, pink candle on the Third Sunday of Advent, is a reminder of Saint John the Baptist; and the last purple candle, on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, recalls the Virgin Mary.

We already meet Saint John the Baptist by the banks of the River Jordan in the Gospel reading for the previous Sunday, the Second Sunday of Advent (Matthew 3: 1-12, tomorrow, 8 December 2013).

Do you remember how John is taken aback when he first meets with Christ? He comes across full of confidence and certainty. He announces the coming of Christ with great hope and expectation, bursting with energy. Yet, when Christ comes to him to be baptised, is there even a hint that John is a little reluctant to baptise him?

Have you ever wondered why John does not know who Jesus is? After all, not only has he baptised him and hailed him, he is also his cousin. Considering how close to one another their mothers Mary and Elizabeth have been, why would John now not know who Jesus is? Is this not the same John who leaped with joy in his mother’s womb when he realised he was in the presence of the unborn Christ (see Luke 1: 44)?

Have you ever wondered why John was not one of the disciples?

We move on quite a bit by the Third Sunday of Advent. It is a week later in the lectionary readings, but many months after Christ’s baptism in the River Jordan. Saint John the Baptist has preached himself hoarse about looking forward to one who is more powerful than he is. However, since then Jesus has not been wielding power in the way John may have hoped for or may have been expecting.

Now as John waits in prison, about to lose his head, perhaps he wonders whether he made a mistake in thinking Jesus is the Messiah. Perhaps he is feeling discouraged and doubtful, he sends messengers to ask Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” (verse 3).

The simple answer for Christ might have been: “Yes.” Instead, however, Christ points Saint John, the messengers and the crowd to the signs of the Kingdom. Echoing the Prophet Isaiah, he points out that the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the lepers are healed, the dead are raised and the poor receive good news.

These are not mere claims, but incontrovertible proof. Yet apparently there are some who take offence at Christ (verse 6). Perhaps even Saint John the Baptist has been disappointed because his expectations of the Messiah are not being fulfilled by Christ. He is hardly the king of the coming kingdom – after all, he is not “dressed in soft robes” (verse 8). The term “soft robes,” used twice in this verse, has resonances of self-indulgence.

Is this what gives rise to Saint John’s doubts?

Is it possible that Saint John was expecting for the wrong kind of Messiah?

Indeed, is Jesus the one John the Baptist has been waiting for?

When Saint John’s disciples return and tell him what Christ has told them, does Saint John conclude that Jesus is not the Messiah he has been waiting for?

Does John think he has been waiting for the wrong kind of Messiah?

How often have you waited expectantly – for Christmas, for a Christmas present, for a new job, for a major family milestone, for the move to a new home – only to face the realisation that your expectation has been unfulfilled? Another pair of socks? The wrong job with low pay, high expectations and bad conditions? The family milestone upstaged by a family crisis? The new home has horrid neighbours? Is the person I loved so many years ago really the person I live with now?

Picture Vladimir and Estragon in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, lonely and empty by the side of the road, waiting forever for Godot who never arrives.

Picture Eleanor Rigby in the lyrics of the Beatles, waiting alone at the window, alone among the lonely people.

Picture Saint John the Baptist, waiting in prison where he has been sent by Herod the Great.

Now he is tired. He has grown discouraged. He is questioning. He is like us. He jumps to hope with power and aggressiveness. But later, when he is dispirited, he has questions, and he has doubts. Is Jesus really the Christ he is looking for?

What happened to the John the Baptist who said Jesus would chop down fruitless trees and throw chaff into the fire?

Has Jesus spent his ministry throwing chaff into the fire?

No, it seems not. And so Saint John sends his own disciples, to ask: “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we wait for another?”

Saint John, who has devoted his entire life to preparing the way for Christ, now seems not to even recognise Jesus when he comes. Has Jesus come in a way that John does not expect. Should he and his disciples look for another?

Christ refers to the signs of the Kingdom in Isaiah. Saint John is “more than a prophet” (verse 9), for he heralds the dawn of the final era of history and he announces the coming of the Kingdom. Now Christ validates Saint John’s ministry as a true prophet, quoting a prophecy from Malachi in verse 10, and then equating Saint John’s ministry with the returned Elijah (verse 14).

At that time, Jews believed the time of the prophets had come to an end. But they understood Malachi’s words to mean that Elijah would come again, heralding the advent of the Messiah.

Christ criticises the people who went out to see Saint John the Baptist in the wilderness with the wrong expectations. What they actually saw was greater than they could ever imagine. Yet even Saint John, as great as he is, only points the way to an even greater reality (verse 11). Now the fulfilment of this promise is beginning to be worked out and to be seen.

When we are disappointed, when our expectations of the coming Kingdom are dashed, is it because we are not looking for the signs of the Kingdom that are all around us?

The gift of Christ is precious, but does it always meet our expectations?

Are we prepared to look around and notice new places where Jesus is working and living? If you were told: “Go and tell John what you see and hear,” where would you say you see and hear Christ at work today?

I am not blind, lame, leprous, deaf, poor, downtrodden, dead … surely? Am I?

Christ comes in humility for the humble. He comes for those who do not have it all worked out for themselves. I am not humble; so often I think I have it all worked out.

Conclusions:

No, I do not agree with those who argue that Saint John the Baptist doubted whether Jesus is truly the Christ. Often, these arguments are built on “paperback psychology” – thinking that fails to examine the person being discussed.

It is not Saint John the Baptist who is a reed swaying in the wind, blown about by the happenings of the world and the persecution he now faces. It is the people who went to see him who are now being told they are like reeds swayed by the wind.

Saint John remains a prophet and more than a prophet – he rejoices to see the fulfilment of the Promise, and he knows that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, for he sees the Holy Spirit descending on him and remaining on him. He knows that Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. One of his own disciples, Saint Andrew, becomes the first-called among the disciples of Christ.

Saint Jerome says Saint John’s questions arise not out of ignorance but in the same way that Christ asks where Lazarus is buried, so that those who show him the sepulchre might be so far prepared for faith, and believe that the dead are raised again to life. So Saint John, who is about to be put to death by Herod, sends his disciples to Christ, “that by this opportunity of seeing his signs and wonders they might believe on him, and so might learn through their master’s inquiry” (Jerome, Catena Aurea, Matthew 11: 2-6).

By sending them to question Christ about his mission, Saint John the Baptist offers his disciples the opportunity to become true disciples of Christ. This is the opinion of Saint Hilary, Saint Chrysostom, Saint Cyril and many other patristic writers.

Similar points are made by Saint John Chrysostom who says “the Baptist did not doubt or slacken in his faith; for he is no reed swayed in the wind, but the new Elijah.”

Saint Gregory the Great holds that Saint John the Baptist truly questioned whether Christ was the one who would come. But this does not imply that Saint John doubted whether he was the Messiah, but only whether he was the one who would come – meaning the one who would come into Sheol to retrieve the souls of the just who are waiting. As Saint John realises his own death is near, he seeks consolation from Christ who is to deliver the dead from the power of death.

Salome visiting Saint John the Baptist in Prison, Francesco Barbieri (Il Guernico)

Collect:

O Lord Jesus Christ,
who at your first coming sent your messenger
to prepare your way before you:
Grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries
may likewise so prepare and make ready your way
by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,
that at your second coming to judge the world
we may be found an acceptable people in your sight;
for you are alive and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
one God, world without end.

Post Communion Prayer:

Father,
we give you thanks for these heavenly gifts.
Kindle us with the fire of your Spirit
that when Christ comes again
we may shine as lights before his face;
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor, Trinity College Dublin. These notes were prepared for a Bible study in a tutorial group with part-time MTh students on 7 December 2013.

‘Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him’

‘Where are we to get enough bread in the desert to feed so great a crowd’ (Matthew 15: 33) ... fresh bread in Hindley’s Bakery in Tamworth Street, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Church of Ireland Theological Institute,

Wednesday, 4 December 2013,

8 a.m., The Eucharist (Holy Communion 2).

Isaiah 25: 6-10a; Psalm 23; Matthew 15: 29-37.

May I speak to you in the name of + the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

In both our readings this morning, the people are waiting on the mountain in expectation for their Lord.

The Lord is coming. And their expectations are met by this compassionate Lord providing them with food and drink in abundance.

In abundance … and beyond all their expectations, beyond all our expectations.

In our Old Testament reading, the banquet is not just for the Children of Israel, but for all the nations (verse 7), for people who were outsiders, considered outside the covenant.

In our Gospel reading, those who come to see Jesus, travelling across water and up mountainside, are outsiders too: the lame, the maimed, the blind, the mute, and many others. The senseless, the outsiders, the marginalised and the stereotyped.

The imagery could not have been lost on those who saw and those who listened. The Children of Israel came through water and to the side of the mountain at Mount Sinai to be brought into the covenant. Now the marginalised and the stereotype are being called into the new covenant, into a perfect relationship with the Lord God.

And for these who protest, those who claim the covenant is restricted, to one people, or one type, or one category – when we want to restrict God’s love to those who are most like ourselves – Jesus responds with a response that is pure compassion and that overflows with generosity.

I like to imagine it like this: every time we try to act as a lid on God’s compassion and grace and love, we behave just like the lid on a pressure cooker, and it bubbles up and pushes away our lid, and flows over the sides in uncontrollable abundance.

In the bidding prayer at the Advent Procession in Christ Church Cathedral on Sunday afternoon [1 December 2013, the First Sunday of Advent], we were called to pray first of all for those among whom Christ was born: “the cold, the hungry and the homeless; the victims of poverty, injustice and oppression, the sick and those who mourn, the lonely and the unloved; those in despair or in the shadow of death.”

Since Monday morning’s “Spirituality Hour” [2 December 2013], we have been reflecting in this chapel all this week on the meaning of Advent. But in our readings this morning, the Lord God not only reminds us of the meaning of Advent, in his compassion he also puts it into action.

I hope in this season of Advent, our reflections on the spirituality and meaning of Advent bear fruit in action, in action that is a sacramental pointer to what the promised and coming Kingdom is going to be like.

And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

‘How many loaves have you?’ (Matthew 15: 34) ... bread in a Greek baker’s window in Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor, Trinity College Dublin. This reflection was shared at the Eucharist in the institute chapel on 4 December 2013.

‘Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming’

The Jesse Tree in the West Window in Christ Church, Cathedral, Dublin, illustrates an Advent theme (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday 1 December 2013

The First Sunday of Advent

Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin

11 a.m.: The Cathedral Eucharist

Isaiah 2: 1-5; Psalm 122; Romans 13: 11-14; Matthew 24: 36-44.

Matthew 24: 36-44

36 Περὶ δὲ τῆς ἡμέρας ἐκείνης καὶ ὥρας οὐδεὶς οἶδεν, οὐδὲ οἱ ἄγγελοι τῶν οὐρανῶν οὐδὲ ὁ υἱός, εἰ μὴ ὁ πατὴρ μόνος. 37 ὥσπερ γὰρ αἱ ἡμέραι τοῦ Νῶε, οὕτως ἔσται ἡ παρουσία τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. 38 ὡς γὰρ ἦσαν ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις [ἐκείναις] ταῖς πρὸ τοῦ κατακλυσμοῦ τρώγοντες καὶ πίνοντες, γαμοῦντες καὶ γαμίζοντες, ἄχρι ἧς ἡμέρας εἰσῆλθεν Νῶε εἰς τὴν κιβωτόν, 39 καὶ οὐκ ἔγνωσαν ἕως ἦλθεν ὁ κατακλυσμὸς καὶ ἦρεν ἅπαντας, οὕτως ἔσται [καὶ] ἡ παρουσία τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. 40 τότε δύο ἔσονται ἐν τῷ ἀγρῷ, εἷς παραλαμβάνεται καὶ εἷς ἀφίεται: 41 δύο ἀλήθουσαι ἐν τῷ μύλῳ, μία παραλαμβάνεται καὶ μία ἀφίεται. 42 γρηγορεῖτε οὖν, ὅτι οὐκ οἴδατε ποίᾳ ἡμέρᾳ ὁ κύριος ὑμῶν ἔρχεται. 43 ἐκεῖνο δὲ γινώσκετε ὅτι εἰ ᾔδει ὁ οἰκοδεσπότης ποίᾳ φυλακῇ ὁ κλέπτης ἔρχεται, ἐγρηγόρησεν ἂν καὶ οὐκ ἂν εἴασεν διορυχθῆναι τὴν οἰκίαν αὐτοῦ. 44 διὰ τοῦτο καὶ ὑμεῖς γίνεσθε ἕτοιμοι, ὅτι ἧ οὐ δοκεῖτε ὥρᾳ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἔρχεται.

Jesus spoke to his disciples:

36 ‘But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37 For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, 39 and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40 Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. 41 Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. 42 Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

Santas and choristers preparing for Advent ... Saint Nicholas robed in green and other figures in the shop in the crypt in Christ Church Cathedral last week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

It is very difficult to prepare for Christmas when Santa has already arrived in every shopping centre, when the Christmas lights are already strung across the Main Street in every village and town, and when many of our parish choirs are already singing Christmas Carols and organising carol services.

Indeed, it is hard to distinguish between Advent and Lent when you find Cadbury’s crème eggs are already on sale in corner shops and supermarkets everywhere, and Hot Cross buns have a best before date not before Good Friday, but before Christmas Eve.

But even in the Church we often manage to confuse Advent and Lent, probably because they are both seasons of preparation, when we change the liturgical colour from Green to Purple or Violet.

The word Advent, from the Latin word adventus, means “coming,” first applied to the coming or arrival of a king or emperor.

In his poem, ‘The god abandons Antony’ (Απολείπειν ο θεός Aντώνιον), the Greek poet CP Cavafy paints a scene in which the advent or arrival of the Emperor Augustus in Alexandria leads Mark Antony to believe he has been abandoned by the god who once favoured him.

But as Christians, we do not see Advent as a time of threatening doom and being abandoned by God’s favour. Instead, we look forward to the coming of Christ – not just as the cuddly child in the Christmas crib, but at his second coming, bringing with him the justice and peace promised in the Kingdom of God.

That Latin word adventus is simply a translation of the Greek παρουσία (parousía), used for the Second Coming of Christ. This is a word used only by Saint Matthew among the Gospel writers, just as “the close of the age” is another phrase that is peculiar to him alone.

But what does Saint Matthew mean by the παρουσία or coming in verses 37 and 39 of this morning’s Gospel reading?

Παρουσία means the presence, or the coming, the arrival, the advent, the future visible return from heaven of Christ, to raise the dead, to sit at the last judgment, and to set up formally and gloriously the kingdom of God.

The coming of the Son of Man is going to be divisive for all society. Kingdom values are not merely counter-cultural – they are socially divisive, for the values of this world should never be confused with or identified with the values of the Kingdom of God.

But this passage is full of promise. The wedding feast (verse 38) is a recurring image of the heavenly banquet and the coming kingdom. The image of the two women, for me, is not one of doom but reminds me of Ruth and Naomi in the field, looking forward to the Messianic hope (see verse 41). The parting of pairs (verses 40 and 41), whether in a field or on the threshing floor, reminds me, in the apocalyptic language of Saint John on Patmos, that from the mouth of God comes a “sharp, two-edged sword” (Revelation 1: 16; 19: 15).

The division cuts through visible and apparent distinctions.

We can stay with the values of this world, or we can be taken into the values of the Kingdom of God.

But we cannot have both. Take it or leave it – destruction or the kingdom?

This season is a reminder of the original waiting for the coming of the Messiah. But more especially it is a reminder of our waiting for Christ at his Second Coming. This is the season when the Church marks a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the coming of Christ and his kingdom.

In this season we are called to focus on Christ’s coming in judgment and to reign. The characteristic emphasis in Advent, therefore, is expectation rather than penitence.

The Purple of Advent is not a penitential colour ... it is a rich, royal imperial colour, originally derived from a very rare source. Πορφύρα (porphyra), the rare purple dye from Tyre, could command its weight in silver and was manufactured in classical antiquity from mucus secreted by the spiny dye-murex snail.

As a seller of purple, Lydia who welcomes Saint Paul to Philippi (see Acts 16: 11-15) was a wealthy woman of independent means. As Judith Herrin points out in her beautiful book on the powerful women of Byzantium, Women in Purple, a child born to a reigning emperor was πορφυρογέννητος (porphyrogénitos), “born in the purple.”

So, the purple of Advent signifies we are preparing for the coming of Christ as the King of Kings, the ruler of all, in all his royal, imperial, majesty, splendour and glory.

Today’s office Christmas parties, liquid lunches, the early chocolate and department store Santas, hastily-planned carol services – even bringing forward the last posting day to most countries outside Ireland to the week before Advent – all conspire to make it difficult to sustain this sense of being alert and watchful.

Yet, can you not remember with glee and warmth the child-like waiting and watching you experienced during the build-up for Christmas?

In the cold and dark of winter, can you remember that warm glow you felt as you anticipated such a wonderful festival?

The first purple candle on the Advent Wreath in Christ Church Cathedral recalls the Patriarchs (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Advent traditions help us, as children and as adults, to build up that anticipation. This morning we lit the first of the candles on our Advent Wreath, and we shall light a new candle each week. There are three purple candles and one pink candle in a ring, with a white or gold candle in the centre.

The purple candles reflect the liturgical colour of Advent, while pink marks the Third Sunday of Advent. Common Worship in the Church of England suggest these five themes:

Advent 1: The Patriarchs (Purple);
Advent 2: The Prophets (Purple);
Advent 3 John the Baptist (Pink);
Advent 4: The Virgin Mary (Purple);
Christmas Day: The Christ (White or Gold).

Each of these Sundays in Advent reminds us of those who prepared for the coming of Christ, while the accumulation of light expresses our growing anticipation of the coming of Christ, the light of the world.

But there are other traditions too, such as this evening’s Advent Procession Service here in the cathedral at 5 p.m., that remind us that when Christ comes again, as we pray in this morning’s collect, he shall come again in his glorious majesty.

Behind you, in the West Window of the Cathedral, we see the Jesse Tree, another traditional Advent image. The Jess Tree depicts the Ancestors of Christ in a tree that rises from Jesse of Bethlehem, the descendent of Ruth and Naomi and the father of King David. The tree is also inspired by that passage from Isaiah, “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots,” (Isaiah 11: 1), which is a part of next Sunday’s Old Testament reading (8 December 2013, Advent 2: Isaiah 11: 1-10).

Chocolate Santas on sale in a supermarket in Bettystown, Co Meath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Finally, it is worth reminding ourselves that Saint Nicholas is commemorated not on 25 December but later this week, next Friday [6 December]. Saint Nicholas is an Advent saint. And he was such a favourite saint in mediaeval Ireland that many ports had large churches named after him, including Dublin, Dundalk, Galway and Cork.

He is an important figure, but not because of the roly-poly figure hijacked by Coca-Cola and advertising in these weeks of Advent. His willingness to travel, even when his own life was at risk, makes him a role model for the church in mission. As Bishop of Myra he was a key defender of Trinitarian dogma at the Council of Nicaea (325).

The stories of his bringing the victims of murder back to life is a reminder that Christmas is without meaning unless it is related to and connected with Good Friday and Easter Day, that God does not withdraw his favour or abandon us, that the significance of the Incarnation is to be found in our Redemption, in the Resurrection, and in Christ’s coming again, ushering in the Kingdom of God.

As a bishop who was the protector of vulnerable children and teenagers to the point of risking his own place in society, he is an important challenge to some of the ways the whole church has handled some recent difficulties.

As the free-giver of gifts, without expecting anything in return, he is a reminder that God’s love is given freely and unconditionally at the Incarnation in his Son, Christ Jesus ... and what better message could we hear at the beginning of this Season of Advent.

Let me leave us with three questions to ponder in the coming week:

1, Are we ready for the coming of Christ?

2, Can we use this season of Advent as a time of preparation for Christ’s coming not just as a cuddly child in a crib but as the triumphant king?

3, Do the ways we live our lives reflect the values of an over-commercialised shopping season, or reflect the values of the kingdom of the coming Christ, who puts all wrongs to right, who puts to an end all miseries and sufferings?

An so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Candles in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, for the Advent Procession last year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

Collect:

Almighty God,
Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and to put on the armour of light
now in the time of this mortal life
in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility;
that on the last day
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion Prayer:

God our deliverer,
Awaken our hearts
to prepare the way for the advent of your Son,
that, with minds purified by the grace of his coming,
we may serve you faithfully all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor, Trinity College Dublin. This sermon was preached in Christ Church Cathedral Dublin on the First Sunday of Advent, 1 December 2013.

‘If I should die, think only this of me’ … why we should never forget, even 100 years later

A wreath of poppies on my grandfather’s grave in Portrane last year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The Chapel of the King’s Hospital, Dublin

Remembrance Day Service,

8 p.m., 10 November 2013.

May I speak to you in the name of + the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

For most of you here this evening, I am a little too old perhaps to be your father, but not old enough to be your grandfather.

But even my own father and mother were born after World War I was over … well, just.

How many of you have a grandparent who is 100 or older?

[Wait for answers]

It is unlikely that anyone in this chapel this evening who is younger than I am has ever met someone who can remember World War I.

And so, it is likely that some of you are perplexed about why we are remembering a war that began almost a century ago, and those who died in it.

On the other hand, we are in the middle of a decade of centenaries, when people all over Ireland are recalling and in some cases even commemorating a series of nation-shaping events that took place about 100 years ago:

● The Ulster Covenant and the sinking of the Titanic (1912).
● The Lockout (1913).
● The beginning of World War I (1914).
● The Gallipoli landings (1915);
● The Easter Rising and the Battle of the Somme (1916).
● The Russian Revolution (1917).
● The end of World War I (1918).
● The Irish War of Independence … and so on.

But for most of you, I am sure, 100 years is such a long time ago.

So, why do we keep on remembering, laying wreaths, blowing bugles, keeping a minute’s silence, wearing poppies … and so on?

Let me, for a few moments, share just two examples of why I think it is important to continue marking Remembrance Day, and then try to put that into context, asking some of the questions we should be addressing as we mark the centenary of World War I.

Stephen and Bridget (Lynders) Comerford on their wedding day in Donabate in 1905 (Comerford family collection)

My first example is the story of my own grandfather.

Stephen Edward Comerford was hardly a young man when he signed up with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers in 1915. He had already been widowed and seen the tragic death of his eldest child. When he left Dublin for Gallipoli in 1915, he was a 47-year-old man, leaving behind in Ranelagh his second wife, my grandmother – they were married just ten years earlier – and her five young children and step-children.

Perhaps he knew he was helping his own country and the smaller nations of Europe; perhaps he hoped for a better job not only for himself, but for his children too when they grew up. Either way, he knew he was doing the right thing – for his country, and for his people – when he joined the Royal Dublin Fusiliers – “the Toffs and the Toughs”– in 1915.

Within days, he was sent to the Greek island of Lemnos and on to Gallipoli and Suvla Bay. He was among the few survivors evacuated to the Greek city of Thessaloniki. But in the severe Greek winter, many of those soldiers suffered frostbite, dysentery and other sicknesses. Then, in the summer’s heat of 1916, more of them came down with malaria and were evacuated from Thessaloniki.

When I visit Thessaloniki, walk through its streets and climb its hills, I imagine how he must have watched his comrades die from the wounds they received in Balkan battles, from the bitter cold of winter and from the frostbite – many of them young enough to be his sons – while his wife and children wondered whether they were ever going to see him again.

As I stop at a church here, a monastery there, I imagine the prayers he prayed, hoping he would return alive to his wife and children in Ranelagh and to her family in Portrane.

Stephen was discharged on 3 May 1916, three days after the Easter Rising ended, and was sent back to Dublin. Malaria was life-threatening but life-saving – for a few months at least. The war ended on 11 November 1918 and a month later, on 14 December, his youngest child – my father, also Stephen Edward Comerford – was born in Rathmines. Later, Stephen was decorated with the three standard World War I medals – the Victory Medal, the British Medal and the 1914-1915 Star. But his health continued to deteriorate, no more children were born, and he died alone in hospital at the age of 53.

My father was the only one of my grandfather’s seven children to have children himself. So malaria saved my grandfather’s life, however briefly, and ensured that he had grandchildren.

He died just two years after my father was born, and was buried in the old Church of Ireland churchyard in Portrane, close to my grandmother’s parents. But the inscription on his gravestone makes no mention of his part in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, or of how he died.

Ironically, the gravestone also gives the wrong age for him at the time of his death. Stephen Comerford was born on 28 December 1867, and died on 21 January 1921 at the age of 53. But the gravestone says he died at the age of 49 – the age he was when he came back from the war in 1916. As his health deteriorated, he must have remained 49 for ever in my grandmother’s heart.

My grandfather’s only reward was three medals – but even these were lost in the various family moves between Ranelagh, Rathmines, Terenure and Rathfarnham. His lonely hospital death was filled with sadness, terror and dread. His story typifies how those soldiers were forgotten by those who sent them to war and how their stories were not handed on in their families, fearful they would be marginalised further as the political climate changed on this island.

Earlier this summer, I visited Grantchester, the home near Cambridge of the English war-time poet Rupert Brooke. Before he died during the Gallipoli landings in 1915, he wrote:

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed...

In Ireland, my grandfather remained 49 for ever in my grandmother’s heart. And there is some corner in Thessaloniki that is for ever Ireland.

In the centenary of commemorations we are facing over the next decade, the contribution of men like my grandfather must not be undervalued, still less forgotten.

A wreath of poppies on the memorial to Private Robert Davies in Lichfield City station earlier this month (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

My second example comes from a train station I know well in the middle of England. Part of my life-story is linked to the cathedral city of Lichfield. And regularly, as I go to catch a train at Lichfield City station, my eye is caught by a poppy wreath hanging on a monument to a teenage soldier who was shot dead in the station in 1990. Private Robert Davies was off-duty and only 19 when he was shot dead by the IRA on 1 June 1990, waiting for a train home to his parents in Wales. He had been a soldier for only 12 weeks.

Two years ago, a new walkway behind the station in Lichfield was named Robert Davies Walk. His parents Des and Helen Davies were present, and his father said: “There is now a little part of Wales in the heart of England.”

Robert Davies was little older than most of you are this evening. Today he would be 42. Unlike, my grandfather, who was in his 40s, Robert Davies had no children or grandchildren – he is remembered by his sister and his parents, still grieving a young man murdered by terrorists who had the gall to take life, to murder, to create grief, all in the name of this country, and in the name of all who live on this island.

At the Diocesan Synod for the Diocese of Europe earlier this year, Archdeacon Jonathan Lloyd posed a number of pertinent questions for discussion:

● A hundred years on, what does World War I mean for humanity’s self-understanding, for Europe and its place in the world and our understanding of God?
● Are the centenaries of 2014-2018 celebrating or commemorating?
● What is our purpose and message and what place do penitence and reconciliation have?

World War I is beyond the memory of all of us in this chapel this evening. But all of us live with its consequences. For that war led eventually to the monster that became Nazi Germany; it tore apart the Balkans in a way that continues to create suffering from Bosnia to Bucharest, for Romanies and other minorities across Europe; and it contributed too to too many problems we still face in the Middle East with the drawing of artificial boundaries and the creation of artificial states.

Meanwhile, Archdeacon Jonathan Lloyd suggests a number of ways we can best honour and mark the coming centenaries, including:

● Hearing the stories from people of all sides of the conflict.
● Writing and using prayers that do justice to all the feelings that are going to arise.
● Holding candle-light vigils on 4 August next.
● Examining the lessons we should continue to learn today.
● Remembering key Christian witnesses and heroes. Not all of them are men, as the monument to the women of World War II in Whitehall in London reminds us. Not all of them are soldiers, as in the case of Nurse Edith Cavell, or the brave people who went against popular culture and declared themselves conscientious objectors. They include doctors and medics with the Royal Army Medical Corps. They include non-combatants of every age and generation whose cities, towns, villages and farms were destroyed;
● And, finally, praying for forgiveness, healing and peace.

The memorial to the women of World War II near the Cenotaph on Whitehall in London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I am a pacifist, but I willingly wear a poppy on Remembrance Day, if only to say that my grandfather and men like him should never have been neglected, and their sad stories should never be forgotten, nor the sad stories of the widows and children they left behind.

I wear it if only to say that the murderers of 19-year-old Robert Davies in Lichfield should not have the last word about the value of a young man’s life, nor about what it is to be Irish today.

This evening, let us pray that we may find the ways needed to put all wars behind us, to put aside all hatred and violence.

Let us pray that when we remember that we remember with sorrow, with gratitude and with forgiveness, but without bitterness or anger.

Let us pray that the call of nationalist ideologies may never twist us, may never distort the love we should have for others, and never allow us to deny our shared humanity.

May God grant to the living Grace,
to the departed Rest,
to the Church and the world peace and concord,
and to all us sinners Eternal Life, Amen.

A prayer for the healing of the nations at Westminster Abbey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor, Trinity College Dublin. This sermon was preached at the Remembrance Day Service on 10 November 2013 in the Chapel of the King’s Hospital, Dublin.

Storing up treasures for myself

A barn on a farm at Cross in Hand Lane, outside Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

For our devotional reading and reflection this morning [Monday 21 October 2013], I have chosen the Gospel reading provided for a celebration of the Eucharist today in the Calendar of the Church of Ireland:

Luke 12: 13-21

13 Εἶπεν δέ τις ἐκ τοῦ ὄχλου αὐτῷ, Διδάσκαλε, εἰπὲ τῷ ἀδελφῷ μου μερίσασθαι μετ' ἐμοῦ τὴν κληρονομίαν. 14 ὁδὲ εἶπεν αὐτῷ, Ἄνθρωπε, τίς με κατέστησεν κριτὴν ἢ μεριστὴν ἐφ' ὑμᾶς; 15 εἶπεν δὲπρὸς αὐτούς, Ὁρᾶτε καὶ φυλάσσεσθε ἀπὸ πάσης πλεονεξίας, ὅτι οὐκ ἐν τῷπερισσεύειν τινὶ ἡ ζωὴ αὐτοῦ ἐστιν ἐκ τῶν ὑπαρχόντων αὐτῷ. 16 Εἶπεν δὲ παραβολὴν πρὸς αὐτοὺς λέγων, Ἀνθρώπου τινὸς πλουσίου εὐφόρησεν ἡ χώρα. 17 καὶ διελογίζετο ἐν ἑαυτῷ λέγων, Τί ποιήσω, ὅτι οὐκ ἔχω ποῦ συνάξω τοὺς καρπούς μου; 18 καὶ εἶπεν, Τοῦτο ποιήσω: καθελῶ μου τὰς ἀποθήκας καὶ μείζονας οἰκοδομήσω, καὶ συνάξω ἐκεῖ πάντα τὸν σῖτον καὶ τὰ ἀγαθά μου, 19 καὶ ἐρῶ τῇ ψυχῇ μου, Ψυχή, ἔχεις πολλὰ ἀγαθὰ κείμενα εἰς ἔτη πολλά: ἀναπαύου, φάγε, πίε, εὐφραίνου. 20 εἶπεν δὲ αὐτῷ ὁ θεός, Ἄφρων, ταύτῃ τῇ νυκτὶ τὴν ψυχήν σου ἀπαιτοῦσιν ἀπὸ σοῦ: ἃ δὲ ἡτοίμασας, τίνι ἔσται; 21 οὕτως ὁ θησαυρίζων ἑαυτῷ καὶ μὴ εἰς θεὸν πλουτῶν.

13 Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.’ 14 But he said to him, ‘Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?’ 15 And he said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’ 16 Then he told them a parable: ‘The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17 And he thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?”18 Then he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” 20 But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” 21 So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.’

Reflection:

This is also the Gospel reading in the Revised Common Lectionary this year for Sunday 4 August 2013, the Tenth Sunday after Trinity.

I understand why the man in this reading does many of the things he does.

He has a bumper crop one year, and not enough room to store it. Was he to leave what he could not store to rot in the fields?

It would have been wrong for this man to leave the surplus food to rot in the fields because he failed to have the foresight to build larger barns to store the surplus grain.

Surplus food is the foundation of economics … and makes generosity, charity and care for the impoverished possible.

The people who first heard this parable would have recalled so many images in the Old Testament of the benefits of producing surplus food, from Joseph and the famine in Egypt to Ruth and Naomi gleaning in the corners of the field.

They would have thought of God’s generosity in providing extra food in times of need, like the manna in the wilderness.

The Prophet Hosea reminds the people, in the Old Testament reading provided for that same Sunday morning that God is the God who can say throughout their history: “I bent down to them and fed them” (Hosea 11: 4).

This is the language of Christ when he feeds the hungry multitude in the wilderness, multiplying five loaves and two fish.

This Gospel reading offers the abundance and generosity of God’s provision as a sign of God’s love, for us as individuals and for all around us.

The rich man – labelled in the headings in some Gospel translations as “the Rich Fool” – is not deemed to be foolish, nor is he faulted, for being an innovative farmer, for storing up his crops, for building larger barns, not even condemned for being rich.

He condemns himself for thinking that all that matters in life is my own pleasure and personal satisfaction.

This man thinks not of his needs, but of his own pleasures. He never reaches out to the people around him who could benefit from his business acumen or from his charitable generosity.

In failing to take account of God and of the needs of others, he fails to realise his own true needs; he is spiritually dead.

But if he has stopped speaking to God, God has not stopped speaking to him. And God tells this man in a dream that night that this man is spiritually dead, that his life is being demanded of him.

Yet we never hear how he responds, we never hear whether he dies. The story ends just there.

Did he die of fright?

Did he die after drinking too much?

Did he wake up and carry on regardless?

Or, like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, did he wake up and realise his folly, and embrace the joys of the Incarnation?

I am challenged not to pass judgment on the Rich Man. Instead, Christ challenges me, in the first part of this reading, to put myself in the place of this man.

If I have got things wrong up to now, there is still a chance to get things right … with God, with myself, with others.

What am I storing up for myself that would be of more benefit to others now than to me in another few years’ time?

What am I clinging on to so that it threatens to bring me spiritual death: wealth, prejudice, social comforts, arrogance, curmudgeonly grumpiness, the stereotyping and marginalising of others that protects me against my own insecurity?

Where and which are the barns in my own heart that I need to tear down so that others may not only have life but have life to the full?

Prayer:

The Collect of the day for that Sunday when this was the gospel reading prays:

Let your merciful ears, O Lord,
be open to the prayers of your humble servants;
and that they may obtain their petitions,
make them to ask such things as shall please you;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor, Trinity College Dublin. This reflection was shared at an academic staff meeting in the institute on 21 October 2013.

Being sent out like ‘lambs into the midst of wolves’ with ‘no purse, no bag, no sandals’

Saint Luke among the Gospel writers … sculpted representations of the Four Evangelists at University Church, Dublin: Saint Mark (the winged lion) and Saint Matthew (the angel) above; and Saint John (the eagle) and Saint Luke (the winged ox) below (Photographs: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Saint Luke the Evangelist (18 October 2013):

8.30 a.m., The Eucharist

Isaiah 35: 3-6 or Acts 16: 6-12a; Psalm 147: 1-7; II Timothy 4: 5-17; Luke 10: 1-9.

May I speak to you in the name of + the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

I wonder whether any of you who are Third Year students here this week find the Gospel reading this morning (Luke 10: 1-9) has any resonances with your deacon internships: “See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road (verses 3-4).”

This morning we remember and give thanks for Saint Luke (Λουκάς) the Evangelist, traditionally remembered as the author of the Third Gospel and of the Acts of the Apostles.

I have never quite worked out why Saint Luke among the four evangelists is traditionally represented in Church architecture and art as a winged ox. But I find he is an interesting Biblical figure not just as an evangelist, but as writer who provided fascinating accounts of his travels – in all he names 32 countries, 54 cities and nine islands – and as a key figure in the tradition of icons and iconography.

Although he is not one of the Twelve, Saint Luke figures throughout the New Testament. Apart from the Gospel he gives his name to and the Acts of the Apostles, he is also mentioned in the Epistle to Philemon (verse 24), Colossians 4: 14 and II Timothy 4: 11, which is part of this morning’s Epistle reading.

Later traditions claimed Saint Luke was one of the Seventy who figure in our Gospel reading, that he was one of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, or even that he was closely related to the Apostle Paul. But Saint Luke, in his own statement at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, tells us he was not an eyewitness to the events of the Gospel. On the other hand, he repeatedly uses the word “we” as he describes Saint Paul’s missions in Acts, indicating he was personally there so many times.

Yet, both the Gospel according to Saint Luke and the Acts of the Apostles are detailed in history, expression, and narrative that are held in regard by Biblical historians and archaeologists for their historical accuracy and trustworthiness.

Saint Luke … traditional image in a modern stained-glass window in Saint Luke’s Episcopal Cathedral in Orlando, Florida (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Luke is also known as the “glorious physician,” and – especially in the Eastern Church – as an icon writer.

It is said that Saint Luke was born in Antioch in Syria (now in Turkey) to Greek-speaking parents. As a physician, he was said to have had a skill for healing, but left this behind around the year 50 AD and joined Saint Paul after they met in Antioch.

He may have accompanied Saint Paul on his missionary journeys before staying on in Troas (Troy) after Saint Paul’s departure, although it is also possible that he was with Saint Paul in Rome until Saint Paul was martyred (see II Timothy 4: 11; Acts 28: 16). Tradition says Saint Luke died in Thebes, in central Greece, at the age of 84.

I wonder, as you gain experience – and, at times, heart-breaking experiences – of pastoral and hospital visits, do you wish you could call on the healing abilities and skills of Saint Luke the Physician?

Luke gives us the great poetry of the canticles Magnificat (Luke 1: 46-55), Benedictus (Luke 1: 68-79) and Nunc Dimittis (Luke 2: 29-32). Luke alone gives us the Annunciation, the Visitation, the birth of Saint John the Baptist, and the Presentation of the Christ Child in the Temple. Luke introduces us to Elizabeth and Zechariah, the angels and the shepherds at the first Christmas, Simeon and Anna, the Child lost in the Temple, the Good Samaritan, the unjust steward, the Prodigal Son, the healed Samaritan, Zacchaeus the tax-collector, and the Disciples on the Road to Emmaus.

Luke devotes significantly more attention to women. Alone among the four Evangelists, he portrays Christ as the constant friend of the poor, the down-trodden, the marginalised, the side-lined, healing the sick, comforting even the despairing thief on the cross beside him.

Or, as you are challenged by the ways of the world, do you wonder how – like Saint Luke the Gospel writer and Saint Luke the Iconographer – you can present the world with meaningful and accessible accounts and images of who Christ is?

Or, is Saint Luke the early missionary an inspiration for you, with his accounts of the missionary work of the early Church?

Without Saint Luke, it would be impossible to imagine how we could know about the earliest missionary endeavours of Saint Paul and the Apostolic Church.

And so I hope in your ministry and mission you find Saint Luke an attractive and interesting Biblical figure ... as an evangelist, as someone who presents Christ in ways that can be understood in the language of the people, whether word or image, as someone who gives healing a proper place in ministry, as a friend of the poor and the sick, the marginalised and the stereotyped, as someone who, in all his travels and travails, remains faithful unto death to the ministry he is called to and is charged with.

And so may all we think, say and do be to the glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Collect:

Almighty God,
you called Luke the physician,
whose praise is in the gospel,
to be an evangelist and physician of the soul:
By the grace of the Spirit
and through the wholesome medicine of the gospel,
give your Church the same love and power to heal;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post-Communion Prayer:

Living God,
may we who have shared these holy mysteries
enjoy health of body and mind
and witness faithfully to your gospel,
in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This reflection was shared at the Eucharist in the institute chapel on Saint Luke’s Day, 18 October 2013.