To give and to receive the best of all presents this Christmas

The Birth of Christ, a Christmas icon by Juliet Venter, from The Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge, 2014

Patrick Comerford

25 December 2014, Christmas Day

The Nativity of our Lord

10 a.m., The Parish Eucharist, Saint Werburgh’s Church, Dublin.

Readings: Isaiah 52: 7-10; Psalm 98; Hebrews 1: 1-4 (5-12); John 1: 1-14 (15-18).

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

I know you are not expecting a sermon this morning, and that everyone would like to get home as soon as possible to spend the rest of Christmas Day with the family.

But on this day we celebrate, as Saint John says in our Christmas Gospel reading, that “the Word became flesh and lived among us.” And so it would be a pity this morning if we did not share a few words about the Word that was in the beginning and that came to dwell among us.

It is a puzzle to the followers of other religions in the region where Saint John the Evangelist was living that the God of Christians is described not in terms of power and might and majesty, but as the Word.

Tradition tells us that Saint John spends his last days in the Eastern Mediterranean, in prison on the island of Patmos, and then in Ephesus, where the Johannine church lived side by side with the worshippers of the cult of Artemis, whose temple was one of the seven wonders of the world.

The incarnate God, the Word made Flesh, was not the sort of God his neighbours could accept. Nor was he the sort of Messiah his contemporaries could expect.

The sort of Messiah that was expected at the time was one who would drive out the Romans, who would reallocate and redistribute the positions of power and authority, who would make them feel good about themselves.

But the God revealed at Christmas-time, to the Shepherds in Bethlehem and then to the Magi, is not just God incarnate, God become human, but God who takes on all our frailty, all our weakness, all our vulnerability. As Canon Giles Fraser pointed out in the Guardian recently, this is God as a human baby, at “the raw limits of human existence.”

God almighty, God the creator, is not a remote powerful, awesome and fearsome despot hidden behind the clouds, high in the sky. The God who loves us becomes a powerless baby, with all the needs and all the screams of a helpless baby.

God loves us, and all we can do in response is to love God, and to love one another.

God gives up all his power, position, place and authority, not empower us and to make us strong and brave, but to call us to love, to love more and to love more fully.

And the first people to hear this Good News were not the powerful merchants in the warmth and comfort of the bright city, but the shepherds in the isolated cold and dark on the hillside.

The first people to hear this Good News were not Herod and his courtiers in the warmth and comfort of his bright place, but three wise men or kings who give up their own privileges to travel in the cold and dark to a strangely poor household.

At the heart of the Christmas story is Christ’s teaching that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

If you feel last, forgotten and powerless this Christmas, then God has identified with you, identifies with you now, this Christmas, in his incarnation, in the Christmas story.

The religion of the baby born in Bethlehem is not the religion of power, and wealth and privilege. It is about love, unconditional love. And the greatest Christmas presents are the love of God and the love of others. To give and receive these are to give and receive the greatest Christmas presents of all.

So, may all we think, say and so be in the name of + the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This reflection was shared at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Werburgh’s Church, Dublin, on Christmas Day, 25 December 2014.

Collect:

Almighty God,
you have given us your only-begotten Son
to take our nature upon him
and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin:
Grant that we, who have been born again
and made your children by adoption and grace,
may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Introduction to the Peace:

Unto us a child is born,
and his name shall be called the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9: 6).

Preface:

You have given Jesus Christ your only Son
to be born of the Virgin Mary,
and through him you have given us power
to become the children of God:

Post Communion Prayer:

God our Father,
whose Word has come among us
in the Holy Child of Bethlehem:
May the light of faith illumine our hearts
and shine in our words and deeds;
through him who is Christ the Lord.

Blessing:

Christ, who by his incarnation gathered into one
all things earthly and heavenly,
fill you with his joy and peace:
and the blessing of God almighty,
the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,
be with you and remain with you always. Amen.

Christ is coming: ‘In my beginning is my end ... In my end is my beginning’

‘Now the light falls / Across the open field, leaving the deep lane / Shuttered with branches, dark in the afternoon’ (TS Eliot, ‘East Coker’) … a walk in Rathfarnham on Friday afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

Church of Ireland Theological Institute,

Sunday 7 December 2014,

The Second Sunday of Advent
.
11.30 a.m., The Community Eucharist

Readings: Isaiah 40: 1-11; Psalm 85: 1-2, 8-13; II Peter 3: 8-15a; Mark 1: 1-8.

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

“To begin at the beginning” – these are the opening lines of Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas (1954), who was born 100 years ago [27 October 1914].

Or I might begin with words from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol. In Chapter 12, the White Rabbit puts on his spectacles.

“Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?” he asked.

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

TS Eliot’s “East Coker,” the second of his Four Quartets, is set at this time of the year and opens:

In my beginning is my end.

It is Advent time, and he goes on to say:

In my beginning is my end. Now the light falls
Across the open field, leaving the deep lane
Shuttered with branches, dark in the afternoon …

The opening words at the beginning of a play, a novel or a poem – or for that matter, a sermon – can be important for holding the reader’s or the listener’s attention and telling me what to expect. Begin as you mean to go on.

That is why I am surprised that Charles Dickens waits until the second sentence in David Copperfield to say: “To begin my life with the beginning of my life …”

So Advent marks the beginning of the Church Year, preparation for the beginning of the Christ story, and expresses our hopes for the beginning of – the ushering in of – the Kingdom of God.

We might expect then that the Advent Gospel readings are all about preparing for Christmas, and so begin at the beginning.

But it is curious how each Gospel begins to tell the story, each in a different way.

Saint John begins at the beginning, at the very beginning: “In the beginning was the word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1: 1).

Saint Luke begins with a personal explanation to Theophilus of why he is beginning to write the Gospel (Luke 1: 1-4), before moving on to the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth (Luke 1: 5 ff). It takes him a full chapter before he gets to tell the story of the first Christmas (Luke 2: 1-20).

Saint Matthew begins with the genealogy of Jesus, generation after generation, with long lists of sometimes unpronouncable names (Matthew 1: 1-17) before he summarises the story of the first Christmas in seven crisp verses … and even then he seems to concentrate more on how Joseph’s fears and suspicions were allayed than on the Christmas story (see Matthew 1: 18-25).

Saint John the Baptist baptises Christ in the River Jordan ... a detail from a window in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

But Saint Mark’s Gospel has no Nativity narrative at all, has no story of the first Christmas.

Instead, this morning, Saint Mark begins his Gospel with his account of the Baptism of Christ by Saint John the Baptist in the River Jordan, an event that comes a little later on in the other three Gospels (see Matthew 3: 1-17; Luke 3: 1-21; John 1: 19-34).

Although in Year B the [Revised Common] Lectionary is taking us through Saint Mark’s Gospel, because Saint Mark has no Nativity story, the main Gospel reading on Christmas Day is either the Nativity Narrative in Saint Luke’s Gospel (Luke 2: 1-14 or 1-10) or the Prologue to Saint John’s Gospel (John 1: 1-14 or John 1: 1-18).

Many people think they know the Christmas story as it is told in the Gospels. Perhaps then they would be surprised to learn there is no Christmas story in either Saint Mark’s or Saint John’s Gospel. We might be even more surprised to learn that what they think is part of the Christmas story is actually found in the Old Testament reading this morning. They are familiar with it, and they immediately associate it with Christmas, because of the opening words of Handel’s Messiah:

But it is often the opening words of Handel they are familiar with and not the beginning of the Gospel story.

Saint Mark’s account of the Baptism of Christ is a story that promises that the Advent of Christ, the arrival of Christ, is the fulfilment of the Prophets – he quotes not just Isaiah but Malachi too – and is the fulfilment of the promises of Creation.

Later in this chapter, Saint Mark brings together all the elements of the creation story in [the Book] Genesis: we move from darkness into light; the shape of the earth moves from wilderness to beauty; there is a separation of the waters of the new creation as Christ and John go down into the waters of the Jordan and rise up again; and, as in Genesis, the Holy Spirit hovers over the waters of this beautiful new creation like a dove.

And then, just as in the Genesis creation story, where God looks down and sees that everything is good, God looks down in this Theophany story and lets us know that everything is good. Or, as Saint Mark tells us: And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1: 11).

God is pleased with the whole of creation; God so loves this creation, the κόσμος (kosmos), that Christ comes into it, identifies with us in the flesh, and is giving us the gift and the blessings of the Holy Spirit.

Isaiah talks about the promise of the return of the people through the wilderness and the desert to Jerusalem and to freedom (Isaiah 40: 3). Saint John the Baptist calls the people from Jerusalem back out into the wilderness, where he proclaims that forgiveness and freedom is available to all who repent and are baptised. His baptism is a sign of turning to God again, of accepting God’s forgiveness and judgment.

Christ’s baptism re-establishes that link between God and humanity. This is the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

To us, Saint John the Baptist comes to prepare for, and to announce, Christ’s coming. But if all we expect from the coming of Christ and Christ’s work among us is finding forgiveness for sin, finding a relationship with God, and joining God’s people if we are willing to repent and turn around, then – I’m sorry – we are in for a big surprise.

As the opening verse of the Gospel reading tells us, this is just the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is the beginning – and only the beginning.

During Advent, we expect the coming of Christ and the fulfilment of his reconciling work on earth. As the Epistle reading (II Peter 3: 8-15a) tells us, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home, where God’s justice is done (verse 13).

The Epistle writer says the apparent delay in Christ’s coming is merely a delusion in time, for God does not measure time in the way we do (verse 8). Instead, God wishes all to be found worthy, and does not want any to perish. He is waiting patiently for all to repent of their waywardness (verse 9), but the end will come suddenly and unexpectedly, like a thief (verse 10).

Today in our society, though, many people must think not that the end is near, but that the end is already here. At every level of society in Dublin today, people have been so hard pressed by austerity measures they wonder whether there is any light at the end of the tunnel.

The city has been shocked by the death of a homeless man on the streets near Dáil Éireann in the past week. But despair is not confined to the addicts, delinquents and the marginalised.

It was heart-breaking to hear Father Peter McVerry, like a voice crying in the wilderness, talk on the Late, Late Show on Friday night about the hundreds of families being made homeless in Dublin because of the squeezes in the property market – ordinary families, without any dependency problems or delinquency, forced to walk the streets by day because Bed and Breakfast provision is only for the night; parents and children sleeping in cars or in the airport because it is warm; parents forced to place their children in care so they are not sleeping on the streets and in doorways tonight.

As Giles Fraser said in his thought-provoking column in the Guardian yesterday [6 December 2014], “Christmas Christianity insists that fully to imagine God is to imagine a human child – little, weak and helpless.”

Yet, for many families, their income has dropped, their houses are in danger of being repossessed because they cannot afford rent rises or to pay the interest on their mortgages, never mind paying off some of the capital, their skilled adult children have been forced to emigrate with their grandchildren.

Who will comfort, who will comfort my people?

The proposed water charges may not seem exorbitant; however, they may yet prove to be the final straw that has broken the camel’s back. And the opinion polls indicate that the prospect for our future politically is not one of either stability or responsibility.

But this Epistle reading promises a very different future that ushers in “new heavens and a new earth.” As we wait, we should be signs of this promise, and his apparent delay is an opportunity to prepare, to become signs, to become sacraments of the “new heavens and a new earth.”

And once again, I call to mind TS Eliot in “East Coker”:

O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark …
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God …

Yet, in this apocalyptic, visionary, poem, Eliot is neither all doom nor all gloom. He talks about Faith

... pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.

And he concludes “East Coker”:

Old men ought to be explorers
Here and there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

Giles Fraser tried to summarise Advent and Christmas values in that column in the Guardian: “I have come that they may have life and have it to the full” is how Jesus expresses his mission in Saint John’s gospel. “The glory of God is a human being fully alive,” wrote Irenaeus in the second century.

“In my beginning is my end ... In my end is my beginning.”

Christ is coming, and in his birth, life, agony, death and resurrection he is reconciling the whole world, each of us with one another and with God. He is coming with a vision of a world in which all of the barriers that separate us – poor and rich, North and South, male and female, Jew and Gentile, nation and nation, home-happy and homeless – will be no more.

His coming is just the beginning of the Good News and the beginning of hope. Let us prepare the way of the Lord: cast down the mighty and raise up the lowly, let justice and righteousness go before him, let peace be the pathway for his feet, do justice and make peace. And let this be just the beginning.

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

The Baptism of Christ depicted in stucco relief in the Baptistery in the Church of Saint Nicholas of Myra, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Collect:

Father in heaven,
who sent your Son to redeem the world
and will send him again to be our judge:
Give us grace so to imitate him
in the humility and purity of his first coming
that when he comes again,
we may be ready to greet him with joyful love and firm faith;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion Prayer:

Lord,
here you have nourished us with the food of life.
Through our sharing in this holy sacrament
teach us to judge wisely earthly things
and to yearn for things heavenly.
We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This sermon was preached at the Community Eucharist on 7 December 2014, as part of a residential weekend with part-time MTh students.

Saint Simon and Saint Jude: they just about make it onto the first XI

Saint Simon and Saint Jude … not ‘celebrity saints’ but worth remembering

Patrick Comerford

Saint Simon and Saint Jude: 28 October 2014:

Readings: Isaiah 28: 14-16; Psalm 119: 89-96; Ephesians 2: 19-22; John 15: 17-27.

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

This morning we celebrate Saint Simon and Saint Jude, Apostles.

How wonderful to have Simon reads the Gospel on this day. But in Dublin today, if you asked who Saint Simon is, apart from Simon here, you might be told Saint Simon cares for the homeless and the misfits.

If you asked who Jude is, you might be told he is “Obscure” – or the Patron of Lost Causes.

They are little known as apostles, without fame.

In an age obsessed with reality television, the X-Factor and celebrities who are celebrities – just because they are – Simon and Jude appear like a pair of misfits: we know little about their lives or how they lived them, they are hardly famous among the disciples, and they certainly are not celebrity apostles.

Simon and Jude are way down the list of the Twelve Apostles, and their names are often confused or forgotten. In the New Testament lists of the Twelve (Matthew 10: 2-4; Mark 3: 16-19; Luke 6: 14-16; Acts 1: 13), they come in near the end, in tenth and eleventh places. Well, with Judas in twelfth place, they just about make it onto the “first eleven.”

The ninth name on the lists is James, the James who was remembered here last Thursday. Judas or Jude is often referred to as “the brother of James” and this in turn leads to him being identified with the “brothers of the Lord.” So, on this day, we celebrate Simon the Zealot, one of the original Twelve; and Jude or Judas of James, also one of the Twelve and author of the Epistle of Jude.

But poor Simon is not mentioned by name in the New Testament except on these lists – after all, there is a better-known Simon than this Simon: there is Simon Peter. As for Jude, his name is so close to Judas – in fact, their names are the same (Ιούδας) – is it any wonder that he became known as the patron saint of lost causes? Trying to remember him might have been a lost cause.

After the Last Supper, Jude asked Christ why he chose to reveal himself only to the disciples, and received the reply: “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to them and make our home with them” (John 14: 22-23).

In his brief Epistle, Jude says he planned to write a different letter, but then heard of the misleading views of some false teachers. He makes a passionate plea to his readers to preserve the purity of the Christian faith and their good reputation.

The Epistle includes a memorable exhortation to “contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 3), and ends with that wonderful closing: “Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen” (Jude 24-25).

But after that, surprisingly, we know very little about the later apostolic missions of Simon and Jude, where they were missionaries or whether they were martyred.

In truth, we know very little about these two saints, bundled together at the end of a list, like two hopeless causes. There was no danger of them being servants who might want to be greater than their master (John 15: 20). All we can presume is that they laboured on, perhaps anonymously, in building up the Church.

But then the Church does not celebrate celebrities who are famous and public; we honour the saints who labour and whose labours are often hidden.

In our Gospel reading, the Apostles are warned about suffering the hatred of “the world.” Later as the Gospel was spread around the Mediterranean, isolated Christians may not have realised how quickly the Church was growing; in their persecutions and martyrdom, they may have felt forlorn and that Christianity was in danger of being a lost cause.

But in our Gospel reading, Christ encourages a beleaguered Church to see its afflictions and wounds as his own.

No matter how much we suffer in our ministry and mission, no matter how others may forget us, no matter how obscure we become, no matter how many people forget our names, no matter how often our labouring in the Gospel appear to others to be a lost cause, we can be assured that we are no longer strangers and aliens, that we are citizens with the saints, that we are building up the household of God upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ himself as the cornerstone, and that we are being built together spiritually into the dwelling place of God (Ephesians 2: 19-22).

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:

Almighty God, who built your Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Jesus Christ himself as the chief cornerstone: So join us together in unity of spirit by their doctrine that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Post Communion Prayer:

Lord God, the source of truth and love: Keep us faithful to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, united in prayer and the breaking of the bread, and one in joy and simplicity of heart, in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This reflection was shared at the Eucharist on the Feast Day of Saint Simon and Saint Jude, 28 October 2014.

The unconditional love of God … a love story for the many or the few?

‘Love Story’ (1970) … how would you portray the unconditional love of God as Father?

Patrick Comerford

Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin

12 October 2014, the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity (Proper 23).

Readings: Isaiah 25: 1-9; Psalm 23; Philippians 4: 1-9; Matthew 22: 1-14.

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

When we come to reading the parables in the Gospels, it is often difficult to read them with a new pair of spectacles, with a fresh approach. We already know the ending.

We all know whose prayer is most sincere, the Pharisee or the Publican; we all know the Good Samaritan is the good neighbour; we all know what happens to the Prodigal Son, but also his waiting father and his begrudging brother.

The problem is that are we so familiar with parables that we know the ending, and we know the lessons to draw from them.

I had a cousin by marriage who in the early 1970s created sad fun for himself by walking down a cinema queue in Oxford, telling couples, pair-by-pair, as they waited for Love Story: “She dies in the end.”

But the real ending in the film comes after Jenny (Ali McGraw) dies and a grief-stricken Oliver (Ryan O’Neill) leaves the hospital to find his estranged father (Ray Milland) who has come back to apologise for how badly he treated the young couple.

Jenny has died; is he too late? No. Oliver replies with the words Jenny used so often: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”

In some ways, Love Story is a clever retelling by Erich Segal of the story of the Prodigal Son. And the point of parables such as the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son is the vast immeasurable love of God as a loving father and the risks Christ takes for us individually and collectively.

This morning’s parable is also familiar. But it is more difficult, more challenging to read than the parables about the love of God and the love of neighbour.

The traditional reading of this parable makes God less like the patient father of the Prodigal Son, and more like Ray Milland’s petulant father who, instead of offering unconditional love, withdraws his love when his children do not do as he bids.

This parable tells of a king hosting a wedding banquet for his son. He invites a long list of guests, who learn to their cost that to refuse a king’s command is treasonous, to mistreat and kill his slaves is open rebellion. The king is outraged and sends his troops to put down the rebellion and to slaughter the unwilling guests – slaughtered like the oxen and calves for the banquet.

Do you see God as a capricious and demanding tyrant – waiting for you to make the religious equivalent of the social faux pas? – watching and waiting to judge your every little move? – keeping a score sheet that drives him to capricious vindictiveness? Does a loving father behave like that?

The Bible tells us constantly that God is slow to anger and rich in mercy (e.g., see Exodus 34: 6; Numbers 14: 18; II Chronicles 30: 9; Nehemiah 9: 17; Psalm 57: 10; Psalm 86: 5, 15; Psalm 103: 8; Psalm 145: 8; Joel 2: 13; Jonah 4: 2; Micah 7: 18; Romans 2: 8).

His abundant love and compassion is often a stark contrast with the experience of the oppressed people of violent kings and rulers in the past (see II Chronicles 30: 9; Nehemiah 9: 17).

On the other hand, how often have I behaved like many of the people invited to the wedding?

How often have I been invited to a book launch, a reception, or even a wedding, and ignored the RSVP request? How often have I ignored it yet turned up at the event?

And there have even been occasions when, rather than offend, I have accepted an invitation, and then not turned up at all. Thankfully no king has sent out his crack paratroopers to seek me out, burn down my city and slay me.

They say in some business circles, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” And to accept an invitation to a wedding comes at a cost.

You have to buy a present, a new outfit, take a day or days off work, with a loss of earnings or holiday time – and that’s before you pay for a baby sitter and hotel room for the night. And if the couple decide to get married in Lanzarote, or in Venice … could I afford the trip even if I wanted to go?

A few Sundays ago [21 September 2014], we heard the parable of the labourers in the vineyard (Matthew 20: 1-16). A day’s wage came after a long day’s toil and sweat for most workers … still does today and certainly did in Jesus’ day.

So, for the poor on the streets, in the alleyways, on the highways and the byways (verse 10), going to a lavish party thrown by an exceptionally rich man may not be so much a treat as a burden, with many costs and the loss of earnings.

It would be wrong to take such a refusal as a snub. And if you did turn up, at some personal cost, would you like someone there to be singled out in a way that highlights her low social status, his low-pay job, or their poor dress sense?

Certainly to go to a party under compulsion makes it no party at all.

So often, we read this parable as being a story about God and those who do not heed his call. But I have difficulties with the traditional, exclusive claims made in many interpretations of this parable, the standard storytelling of this parable. Is Christ proclaiming that God will retaliate violently when God’s messengers are attacked?

If you were to imagine yourself as one of the characters in this parable, who would you be? And would you behave that way?

Are you the king, throwing a lavish wedding banquet?

Are you an invited guest who must refuse the invitation?

Are you a potential guest who resents the compulsion or the cost?

Are you brought in from the street corners, but not prepared?

Christ’s audience would naturally associate a festive meal with the celebration of God’s people at the end of time. The wedding feast is a recurring image in the Bible of the heavenly banquet and the coming kingdom.

But they would also remember past and present kings – from the Pharaohs of Egypt, to despotic kings of Israel and Judah, to the violent Herods and the oppressive Caesars – whose reigns were anything but benign, but marked by violence, mass murders, unnecessary wars and military alliances that resulted in the suffering of ordinary people, in the highways and byways.

The words translated in verse 9 as “the main streets” are “the crossings of the streets” (τὰς διεξόδους τῶν ὁδῶν) in the original Greek – in Dublin today we might say the king is reduced to inviting even the corner boys in from the inner city.

Perhaps the many common people listening to Christ that day know they too are branded as corner boys by the ruling class. They would have feared that they too, on such an occasion, would face berating, social isolation and being thrown out.

It is just a few days before Christ himself is going to be called before the kings and rulers of the day, to be mocked and jeered, to be stripped naked, to be bound hand and foot, to be crucified outside the walls of the city, and to be cast into outer darkness, to be buried and descend to the dead.

So, in an alternative way of looking at this parable, Christ is alone when he speaks out and protests against the king’s tyranny, the tyranny of the kingdoms of this world, by refusing to wear the robe. And he ends up being rejected, being ejected, and being crucified on behalf of all who are marginalised, thrown out, expelled.

Is Christ not calling us this morning to identify with the marginalised, the oppressed, those dealt with violently, those treated harshly and cast out into the darkness because society thinks we would be better rid of them?

Who falls into that category in our society today? The homeless … the foreigners in direct provision … the unemployed or low paid … the emigrant … their children …?

Who falls into that category in the Church today? Those we pass moral judgment on because of their relationships or sexuality … the survivors of abuse … the foreigners in direct provision … the homeless … their children …?

Who falls into that category in the world today? The Kurds … the Palestinians … the residents of Gaza … the victims on all sides in Syria, Iraq, on the borders of Turkey … those demanding human rights …?

A grave in Kerameikós, Athens, where Pericles delivered his funeral oration (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Let me put the Greek use of “few” and “many” by Christ in this parable in its cultural context. Pericles, in his ‘Funeral Oration’ in Athens, according to Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War, uses “the many,” οἱ πολλοί (hoi polloi), in a positive way when praising the Athenian democracy. He contrasts them with “the few” (οἱ ὀλίγοι, hoi oligoi), who abuse power and create an oligarchy, rule by the few. He advocates equal justice for the all before the law against the selfish interests of the few.

When we celebrate the Eucharist this morning, we remember that Christ is the victim, and that he said his blood is shed “for you and for many” … you being the Church, the few in this parable; but the many, οἱ πολλοί (hoi polloi), the masses, the multitude, the great unwashed, are called too.

Christ dies for the many, the lumpen masses, all people, and not just for the few, the oligarchs. The many are invited to this banquet this morning. And who are we to behave like a tyrannical despot and exclude them? For if we exclude them, we are in danger of excluding Christ himself.

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

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. This sermon was preached at the Cathedral Eucharist on Sunday 12 October 2014.

A sculpted grave stone in Kerameikós, in Athens where Pericles made his speech (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Collect:

Almighty God,
you have made us for yourself,
and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you:
Teach us to offer ourselves to your service,
that here we may have your peace,
and in the world to come may see you face to face;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion Prayer:

God our guide,
you feed us with bread from heaven
as you fed your people Israel.
May we who have been inwardly nourished
be ready to follow you
all the days of our pilgrimage on earth,
until we come to your kingdom in heaven.
This we ask in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Matthew 22: 1-14:

1 Καὶ ἀποκριθεὶς ὁ Ἰησοῦς πάλιν εἶπεν ἐν παραβολαῖς αὐτοῖς λέγων, 2 Ὡμοιώθηἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν ἀνθρώπῳ βασιλεῖ, ὅστις ἐποίησεν γάμους τῷ υἱῷ αὐτοῦ. 3 καὶ ἀπέστειλεν τοὺς δούλους αὐτοῦ καλέσαι τοὺς κεκλημένους εἰς τοὺς γάμους, καὶ οὐκ ἤθελον ἐλθεῖν. 4 πάλιν ἀπέστειλεν ἄλλους δούλους λέγων, Εἴπατε τοῖς κεκλημένοις, Ἰδοὺ τὸ ἄριστόν μου ἡτοίμακα, οἱ ταῦροί μου καὶ τὰσιτιστὰ τεθυμένα, καὶ πάντα ἕτοιμα: δεῦτε εἰς τοὺς γάμους. 5 οἱ δὲ ἀμελήσαντες ἀπῆλθον, ὃς μὲν εἰς τὸν ἴδιον ἀγρόν, ὃς δὲ ἐπὶ τὴν ἐμπορίαν αὐτοῦ: 6 οἱ δὲ λοιποὶ κρατήσαντες τοὺς δούλους αὐτοῦ ὕβρισαν καὶ ἀπέκτειναν. 7 ὁ δὲ βασιλεὺς ὠργίσθη, καὶ πέμψας τὰ στρατεύματα αὐτοῦ ἀπώλεσεν τοὺς φονεῖς ἐκείνους καὶ τὴν πόλιν αὐτῶν ἐνέπρησεν. 8 τότε λέγει τοῖς δούλοις αὐτοῦ, Ὁ μὲν γάμος ἕτοιμός ἐστιν, οἱ δὲ κεκλημένοι οὐκ ἦσαν ἄξιοι: 9 πορεύεσθε οὖν ἐπὶ τὰς διεξόδους τῶν ὁδῶν, καὶ ὅσους ἐὰν εὕρητε καλέσατε εἰς τοὺς γάμους. 10 καὶ ἐξελθόντες οἱ δοῦλοι ἐκεῖνοι εἰς τὰς ὁδοὺς συνήγαγον πάντας οὓς εὗρον, πονηρούς τε καὶ ἀγαθούς: καὶ ἐπλήσθη ὁ γάμος ἀνακειμένων.

11 εἰσελθὼν δὲ ὁ βασιλεὺς θεάσασθαι τοὺς ἀνακειμένους εἶδεν ἐκεῖ ἄνθρωπον οὐκ ἐνδεδυμένον ἔνδυμα γάμου: 12 καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ, Ἑταῖρε, πῶς εἰσῆλθες ὧδε μὴ ἔχων ἔνδυμα γάμου; ὁ δὲ ἐφιμώθη. 13 τότε ὁ βασιλεὺς εἶπεν τοῖς διακόνοις, Δήσαντες αὐτοῦ πόδας καὶ χεῖρας ἐκβάλετε αὐτὸν εἰς τὸ σκότος τὸ ἐξώτερον: ἐκεῖ ἔσται ὁ κλαυθμὸς καὶ ὁ βρυγμὸς τῶν ὀδόντων. 14 πολλοὶ γάρ εἰσιν κλητοὶ ὀλίγοι δὲ ἐκλεκτοί.

Translation (NRSV):

1 Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: 2 ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. 4 Again he sent other slaves, saying, “Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.” 5 But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, 6 while the rest seized his slaves, maltreated them, and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. 8 Then he said to his slaves, “The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.” 10 Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

11 ‘But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, 12 and he said to him, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?” And he was speechless.13 Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 14 For many are called, but few are chosen.’

Canon-in-residence while the Dean ‘Shines a Light’ on homelessness

This is one of my weeks as Canon-in-Residence in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

I am canon-in-residence in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, this week, preaching at the Cathedral Eucharist at 11 a.m. this morning [12 October 2014], hopefully taking part in Choral Evensong this afternoon, and trying to be present in the cathedral on other occasions during a busy working week.

Early this morning, Sunday Worship is being broadcast live on BBC Radio 4 at 8 a.m. The Cathedral Eucharist at 11 a.m. is being celebrated by the Dean of Christ Church, the Very Revd Dermot Dunne, and is being sung by the Cathedral Choir.

The setting is Missa Brevis by Giovanni da Palestrina (ca 1525-1594).

The hymns this morning include:

Processional: ‘New every morning is the love,’ by John Keble (1792-1866); Offertory: ‘O Thou, who at thy Eucharist didst pray,’ by William H. Turton (1856-1938), sung to a setting by Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625); Communion: ‘Just as I am, without one plea,’ by Charlotte Elliott (1789-1871), to the tune Saffron Walden by Arthur Henry Brown (1830-1926); and Post-Communion Hymn, ‘Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim,’ by Charles Wesley (1707-1788).

The Communion Motet is O nata lux de lumine, a 14th century Latin hymn to a setting by Thomas Tallis (ca 1505-1585).

Choral Evensong at 3.30 is being sung by the Cathedral Consort, with music by William Byrd. It is followed at 4.45 p.m. with an organ recital by Professor Gerard Gillen of Saint Mary’s Pro-Cathedral, Dublin.

Chapter members take in turns as canon-in-residence for a week in each half of the year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

I hope to be back in the Cathedral on Thursday [16 October] for Choral Evensong. On the following day [Friday, 17 October], Dean Dermot Dunne is leaving the comfort of his home in the Deanery for one night to sleep rough in the Iveagh Gardens and ‘Shine a Light’ on homelessness in Ireland.

The Dean will be sleeping rough on cardboard, in what is likely to be a cold late autumn night, with nothing more than a sleeping bag and a cup of soup to keep him warm.

Dean Dermot thinks it is unacceptable that over 5,000 people are homeless in Ireland today and that one in seven is a child. He has signed up for ‘Shine a Light Night’ so that he can play a part in helping Focus Ireland to provide vital prevention services that help change people’s lives.

Focus Ireland aims to break the cycle of homelessness by giving people access to information, housing, childcare and a range of education services throughout Dublin, Cork, Kilkenny, Limerick, Sligo, Waterford, Clare and Wexford.

You can help this cause by sponsoring the Dean as he takes part in the sleep out. He has committed himself to raise €5,000 by next Friday [17 October 2014] and you can demonstrate your solidarity by sponsoring him today.

Dean Dermot told the Dublin and Glendalough diocesan website: “I am delighted to be part of such a worthwhile cause. Focus Ireland is a very important charity and do such wonderful work in the homeless sector. Your support will not only raise critical funds, it brings us all together to help people who are homeless or at risk. With your help, we can help Focus Ireland continue to provide services to those most in need and enable them to move to a place they can call home.”

To sponsor the Dean, visit http://goo.gl/ZeT6Dl or send a cheque to Christ Church Cathedral, Christchurch Place, Dublin 8, payable to Focus Ireland.

At the end of my week in residence, the Dean of Christ Church Cathedral is sleeping out rough to draw attention to the plight of homeless people in Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Being and doing … are there two ways of saying yes, and no?

Being and doing: Socratic wisdom on sale in the Plaka in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Church of Ireland Theological Institute

Wednesday, 1 October 2014

5 p.m.: The Eucharist

Collect, Readings and Post-Communion Prayer
for the 15th Sunday after Trinity

Readings:

Exodus 17: 1-7; Psalm 78; Philippians 2: 1-13; Matthew 21: 23-32.

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

Black or white?

Dog or cat?

Land or sea?

Wet bob or dry bob?

Paris or Rome?

Beatles or Rolling Stones?

Wine or beer?

It’s the sort of game we all play in our families at one time or another. I loved playing “Matching Pairs” with my children when they were at the early learning stage.

For adults, there are similar jokes about two kinds of people we compare or contrast:

“There are two types of people: those who divide people into two categories, and those who don’t.”

For the mathematicians among you: “There are only 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don’t.”

And for those with a more subtle sense of humour: “There are two types of people in this world: Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.”

This evening’s readings give us contrasting pairs:

In the Old Testament reading (Exodus 17: 1-7), we see contrasts between adults and children; water and wilderness; testing and thirsting; obeying and quarrelling; responsible freedom and slavery without responsibility.

The Psalm (Psalm 78) contrasts images of ancestors and children, day and night, rock and river, and so on.

In our Epistle reading (Philippians 2: 1-13), the Apostle Paul gives us the stark contrasts offered in Christ of slavery and freedom, deity and humanity, fear and trembling, heaven and earth.

This helps us to prepare for the matching pairs or clashing contrasts we find in our Gospel reading (Matthew 21: 23-32).

This reading is set in the immediate aftermath of Christ’s entry in triumph into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and his cleansing of the Temple.

When he returns to the Temple the following day, he is confronted by the religious and civic leaders, the guardians of belief and tradition, who challenge and question him about his power and authority.

The “chief priests and the elders of the people” are the leaders in the Temple hierarchy, and also at the apex of society in Jerusalem – questioning Jesus about what gives him authority. In particular, they ask what gives him the right to behave as he does, and especially the right to claim he is acting in God’s name when he is behaving like that .

It is a question that Christ might have expected, under the circumstances. The exchange takes place when he enters the Temple. The day before had been an eventful day: when Christ enters Jerusalem and the crowds hail him as king. He next goes into the Temple courts, overturns the tables and the seats of the money changers and the dove sellers, and speaks about the destruction of the Temple.

The Temple authorities have been offended. Quite naturally, they have to confront him.

Who does he think he is?

What gives him the right to force his way in and stir things up?

What authority has he to behave like this?

But, in a clever manoeuvre, Christ answers their questions by asking his own question.

A clever manoeuvre, indeed. It was acceptable then, but every bar room lawyer knows now that you are not allowed to ask questions that allow only a choice between two convicting answers, loaded questions like: “When did you stop beating your wife?”

Loaded questions are loaded with presuppositions, often with built-in fallacies and false dichotomies.

And the chief priests and elders fall into a trap that every sixth form debater would know how to set and how to escape.

There is a great deal of humour here. Those who are skilled in the Law failed to see the flawed legal trap. And in doing this they display their innate inabilities, their incomparable incompetence, their own failures in judgment.

In this evening’s reading, Christ answers with a two-part question. And once again, he turns the tables on those who confront him. They are taken aback; they are caught in a dilemma. If they answer one way, they are caught out; if they answer the other, they are still caught out. It’s a dichotomy. And either way they cannot win.

‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today’ (Matthew 21: 28) ... grapes ripening on the vine in the Hedgehog in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

As they are left mulling this over, Christ tells the parable of two sons and a father. The second dichotomy, the second comparison, the second either/or choice, is posed when Christ tells this parable about a father who sends his two sons, a willing son and an unwilling son, to work in the family vineyard.

It is a sharp contrast between being and doing.

The two sons remind me of the T-short I should have bought a few years ago in the Plaka in Athens that had the words:

“To do is to be” – Socrates

“To be is to do” – Plato

“Do be do be do be do” – Sinatra

The American publisher Cyrus Curtis (1850-1933) once said: “There are two kinds of people who never amount to much: those who cannot do what they are told, and those who can do nothing else.”

But the two sons illustrate a serious dilemma:

Those who respond negatively to what they are asked to do, may eventually do it … and recognise their initial wilfulness.

Those who say they are going to do something they are tasked with, but then refuse to follow-up, to deliver, to do, refuse to recognise their own wilfulness yet persist in their sinfulness.

How often have you responded to people because of their words rather than their deeds and found you have completely misjudged them?

The sons are asked to go to work in the family vineyard.

One son says: “I will not.” In a village culture, in which there is no such thing as personal privacy, this son’s reaction to his father shames the father publicly.

The other son says: “I go, sir.” In public, he appears to be as a good son should be.

But the tables are turned when we learn that the son who mouths off actually goes to work in the vineyard, while the son who seems at first to be good and dutiful turns out to be disobedient.

So those who say they are compliant and say they are doing the right thing have headed off to do things their own way, while claiming they are doing what God wants.

On the other hand, Christ tells all present that even prostitutes and tax collectors who appear to be disobedient might actually end up with a true place in the vineyard. In today’s context, who are the people you keep excluding from the kingdom yet are being called in by God?

Paradoxes aside, most of us are not like one son or the other … most of us are like both sons, and wrestle with their responses and their approaches throughout our lives.

Have you ever received an invitation to a party, a book launch, a wedding, with those four little letters at the end: “RSVP”?

Have you ever been one of those people who, anxious not to offend, sends back a reply saying yes, I’ll be there, and then … and then something else crops up, and I fail to turn up.

It has happened to me. I have been invited to parties and book launches, ignored the RSVP line in the bottom corner, and then, at the last moment, turned up. And, I have to confess, I have, at least one or twice, accepted … and not turned up.

On which evening do you think I was most appreciated?

An obvious answer, I think.

It is more forgivable to be socially awkward than to be wilfully rude.

When you are in full-time ministry it will be easy to be like one of these sons.

You may find it difficult to do what God and the Church are calling you to do. If you have been late in testing your vocation, then, like me, you will know what it is to say ‘No’ to God, but eventually answer that RSVP and seek to do his will.

You will find it difficult, you will find it hard, you will even find it boring and tedious, especially when it comes to committees and administration. You will say No countless times, and then realise how worthwhile it all is: labouring in the vineyard should be hard work, but it leads to a good harvest and good wine.

And when you are in full-time ministry it will be easy to say yes, but to continue wilfully to do just what you want to do, persisting in thinking what you want is more important than the promptings of God or even the expectations of the Church.

You may even persist in trying to persuade others, to persuade even yourself, that you are doing God’s will, when you are simply satisfying your own wilfulness.

I have to be careful to distinguish between God’s will and my own will. When they coincide, there are countless blessings. But when they are in conflict, I need to beware of pretending that one is the other, that I am answering the Father’s call and doing his work, when in reality I am doing what I want to do myself, and telling others what I want rather than what God wants.

In the words of the Collect of the Day this evening, I pray that we may all, each one of us, be “found steadfast in faith and active in service.”

In The Great Divorce, CS Lewis claims: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done’.”

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,
who in generous mercy sent the Holy Spirit
upon your Church in the burning fire of your love:
Grant that your people may be fervent
in the fellowship of the gospel;
that, always abiding in you,
they may be found steadfast in faith and active in service;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion Prayer:

Eternal God,
we have received these tokens of your promise.
May we who have been nourished with holy things
live as faithful heirs of your promised kingdom.
We ask this 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, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor, Trinity College Dublin. This sermon was preached at the Community Eucharist in the Institute Chapel on 1 October 2014.

How shall I sing that majesty which angels do admire?

Cattle grazing on Coe Fen in the late summer sunshine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

Monday 29 September 2014

Saint Michael and All Angels

5 p.m., The Eucharist

Readings: Genesis 28: 10-17; Psalm 103: 19-22; Revelation 12: 7-12; John 1: 47-51.

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

Earlier this month, during a week of intense study and work, I took a much-needed break one afternoon and went for a walk across Coe Fen, a large expanse of meadowland on the east bank of the River Cam, in the heart of Cambridge.

Coe Fen means “Cows’ Fen.” Cows are grazing on the grassland, and so you must be careful where you step. I was only a few steps away from the Fitzwilliam Museum and many of the colleges, and still out of earshot of the tourists and the punts. The neighbouring piece of meadow on the other side of the river is known as Sheep’s Green.

It was easy to imagine I was in rural England, in the Fens of East Anglia.

Perhaps because of that remote feeling, one of the bridges and one of the islets on this stretch of the river are known as Crusoe Bridge and Crusoe Island.

Robinson Crusoe Island is a tiny islet in Cambridge where the River Cam splits between Coe Fen and Sheep’s Green (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Another small bridge links Coe Fen with the Leys School, where the music master was once Kenneth Naylor (1931-1991), who wrote the tune for our hymn this evening, How shall I sing that majesty? (Irish Church Hymnal 468, New English Hymnal, 373).

Naylor called this tune Coe Fen. And as I strolled across Coe Fen that sunny, sun-kissed afternoon, lifted up by the splendour of God’s creation, I realised why he had chosen the name Coe Fen for his setting for a hymn that praises God for the wonders of God’s creation – in which we are lifted up by the beauty of God’s creation and join the “celestial choir” in praising God.

Because of Naylor’s setting, this hymn became No 1 in the ‘Top 5 Hymns’ listed in the Church Times/RSCM survey.

The hymn, by John Mason (1645-1694), is based in part on today’s psalm, Psalm 103. The writer contrasts God’s heavenly glory, splendour and majesty with our inadequacies and frailties, and reminds us how, when we attempt to sing of God’s glory, all our human efforts appear feeble and pathetic.

John Hutton’s ‘Screen of Saints and Angels’ at the entrance to Coventry Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

How do you imagine, envisage, that “celestial choir”? What is your image of an angel?

Is an angel a fluffy little cherub with white wings and pudgy cheeks, floating above the earth on white fluffy clouds?

Is an angel some “new age” figure, easily dismissed because of those angel books on the “Mind and Spirit” shelves in bookshops?

Is Saint Michael the patron saint of shoppers at Marks and Spencer and all others who have made the shopping malls their earthly cathedrals?

Or is an angel for you like the Archangel Michael, depicted, for example, by Jacob Epstein’s bronze sculpture, Graham Sutherland’s tapestry, and John Hutton’s ‘Screen of Saints and Angels’ in Coventry Cathedral, inviting you to reflect on our values today, to enter into the triumph of good over evil, to join Christ in Glory?

Sir Jacob Epstein’s bronze statues of Saint Michael and the Devil on the wall outside Coventry Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Where the Archangel Michael is mentioned by name in the Bible, in the Book of Daniel, the Epistle of Saint Jude and the Book of Revelation, he represents relying on the strength of God and the triumph of good over evil.

Saint Michael’s traditional virtues were standing up for God’s people and their rights, taking a clear stand against manifest evil, firmly opposing oppression, violence and corruption, while seeking forbearance and mercy, clemency and justice – virtues we must keep before us in ministry and mission as messengers of God.

His name Michael (Hebrew, מִיכָאֵל; Greek, Μιχαήλ) asks the question: “Who is like El (the Lord God)?”

In today’s world, where angels and archangels are often the stuff of fantasy, science fiction and new-age babble, we need a reminder that angels are nothing more than – but nothing less than – the messengers of God, the bringers of good news, who invite us to join in the triumph of good over evil and to enter into and become wrapped up in God’s glory:

ten thousand times ten thousand sound
thy praise; but who am I?

“Who am I?” It is a question we all ask ourselves when we first hear God’s call to mission and ministry.

But we do not struggle alone, like some Robinson Crusoe stranded on his own tiny island. Even when we feel alone and vulnerable, we are part of the great heavenly host of archangels and angels, patriarchs and prophets, apostles and saints, martyrs and missionaries.

I may not feel as powerful and agile as the Archangel Michael in battling for the world and confronting evil. But we do this in the company of the great heavenly host, strengthened by God alone. For we should always be prepared, like Michael and the angels, to ask and to answer the question: “Who is like the Lord God?”

And the story of the Archangel Michael, whose name asks: “Who is like El (the Lord God)?” invites me and invites you this afternoon to consider who we are as we stand before the throne of God the Creator, in all his majesty and glory, now and for ever more.

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:

Everlasting God,
you have ordained and constituted the ministries
of angels and mortals in a wonderful order:
Grant that as your holy angels always serve you in heaven,
so, at your command,
they may help and defend us on earth;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion Prayer:

Lord of heaven,
in this eucharist you have brought us near
to an innumerable company of angels
and to the spirits of the saints made perfect.
As in this food of our earthly pilgrimage
we have shared their fellowship,
so may we come to share their joy in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Saint Michael above the main door into Saint Michael’s in Lichfield … what does this story say to you today? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

How shall I sing that majesty (ICH, 468; NEH, 373)

1 How shall I sing that majesty
which angels do admire?
Let dust in dust and silence lie;
sing, sing, ye heavenly choir.
Thousands of thousands stand around
thy throne, O God most high;
ten thousand times ten thousand sound
thy praise; but who am I?

2 Thy brightness unto them appears,
while I thy footsteps trace;
a sound of God comes to my ears,
but they behold thy face.
They sing, because thou art their Sun;
Lord, send a beam on me;
for where heav’n is but once begun,
there alleluias be.

3 Enlighten with faith’s light my heart,
inflame it with love’s fire;
then shall I sing and bear a part
with that celestial choir.
I shall, I fear, be dark and cold,
with all my fire and light;
yet when thou dost accept their gold,
Lord, treasure up my mite.

4 How great a being, Lord, is thine,
which doth all beings keep!
Thy knowledge is the only line
to sound so vast a deep.
Thou art a sea without a shore,
a sun without a sphere;
thy time is now and evermore,
thy place is everywhere.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This reflection was shared at the Michaelmas Eucharist in the institute chapel on Saint Michael’s Day, 29 September 2014.

‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’

‘The Eye of the Needle’ by Vladimir Kush

Patrick Comerford

Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin,

Tuesday, 19 August 2014,

12.45: The Mid-Day Eucharist

Readings: Ezekiel 28: 1-10; Psalm 107: 1-3, 40, 43; Matthew 19: 23-30.

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

In recent weeks, I have been saying that it is neither custom nor practice here in Christ Church Cathedral to have a sermon, homily, or even a brief reflection at this mid-day Eucharist. And so I hope to be very brief and very short.

Over these past few weeks, we have all become conscious of the high-level of violence throughout the world, whether it is the conflicts in Gaza and Israel, in Syria, in Iraq, the conflict in Crimea and between Russia and Ukraine, or the other violent conflicts around the world.

One hundred years after the start of the ‘war to end all wars,’ war has become an every-day reality in many countries on every continent.

The dividend promised to the combatants of World War I, and after them World War II, have never been paid, have never been cashed in.

After those wars, there were efforts to introduce legal parameters for the conduct of war and legal guarantees for civilians who might innocently find themselves caught in the line of fire.

The League of Nations failed in its efforts to do this in the 1920s and 1930s; where the League of Nations failed, the Nuremberg trials and the United Nations tried to meet that need after World War II and the Holocaust.

But today more people are being killed in violent, political conflicts around the world than in the conflicts of the 20th century.

The difference is that today the victims are often civilians, and sadly they are often quickly forgotten.

Do we only remember the violence in Afghanistan when we hear about the trafficking of refugees in containers?

What has happened to the kidnapped girls in Nigeria?

Who has been arrested for shooting down a civilian airliner over Ukraine?

Who will bring to trial those who have supplied weapons and training to the Isis murderers of civilians in northern Iraq?

Will no-one ever be charged with the murder of toddlers playing football on a beach in the Gaza Strip?

Are we only disturbed when the violence in conflicts spills over into risks to international air traffic and higher costs and longer flying times for business and tourist traffic?

Civilians – and children in particular – have become collateral damage, the forgotten consequences of war. I have heard one commentator saying: “War is War. People get killed.”

But all the international outrage after two World Wars was supposed to make sure that facile comments like this were never going to be possible again.

We have prayed in our Collect today “that we may bring forth the fruit of the Spirit in love and joy and peace.” But how do we find hope in this?

The Gospel challenges us to keep hope, and we are reminded of that challenge to keep hope in today’s readings for our Eucharist.

The rulers of the world who think they are invulnerable and above accountability set themselves up as gods. But the Prophet Ezekiel and the Psalmist warn rulers who depend on violence against people to prop up their power and their might that there are inevitable consequences.

In God’s own time, all things shall be renewed with the coming of the Son of Man and the Kingdom of God. Those who have been counted out will be counted in. Those who have been made homeless, those who have seen their brothers or sisters or father or mother or children killed and dismissed as mere collateral damage, those who have lost their fields or their livelihood, their schools and their hospitals, may have lost out in the human plotting and scheming of war and politics.

But eventually, in God’s plan they “will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

Perhaps those who abuse power and wealth, and think they are being saved by their power, strength and privilege, will be happy to get down on their knees, like a camel, and squeeze into the City of God through the smallest and most narrow of doors, and find in the most humbling of ways how to get into the Kingdom of God.

Indeed, our Post-Communion Prayer looks forward to “that new world” where God reveals the fullness of God’s peace, and shall “gather people of every race and language to share in the eternal banquet of Jesus Christ our Lord.”

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:

Almighty God,
who sent your Holy Spirit
to be the life and light of your Church:
Open our hearts to the riches of his grace,
that we may bring forth the fruit of the Spirit
in love and joy and peace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post-Communion Prayer:

Holy Father, who gathered us here around the table of your Son
to share this meal with the whole household of God:
In that new world where you reveal the fullness of your peace,
gather people of every race and language
to share in the eternal banquet
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 Mid-Day Eucharist in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on Tuesday 19 August 2014.

‘Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven’

His father and his elder brother have been killed, yet this little child in Gaza is left clutching his father’s glasses with his soft, innocent hand ... is this what the Kingdom of Heaven is like?

Patrick Comerford

Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin,

Tuesday, 12 August 2014,

12.45: The Mid-Day Eucharist

Readings: Ezekiel 2: 8 to 3: 4; Psalm 119: 65-72; Matthew 18: 1-5, 10, 12-14.

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

In recent weeks, I have been saying that it is neither custom nor practice here in Christ Church Cathedral to have a sermon, homily, or even a brief reflection at this mid-day Eucharist. And so I hope to be very brief and very short.

I think all of us have been disturbed in recent weeks about the terrors that are being rained down on children in the world today.

I say “children” and not “innocent children,” because there is no such being as a guilty child – there are only innocent children.

And the suffering and plight of children is all the more distressing when is caused by the calculations of adults who dismiss this suffering as merely the collateral damage brought about by war.

For Christians, this distress must always be acute, must always demand our compassion, must always call for our response.

It cannot matter to us what label is placed on these children – whether the suffering Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip are Christians or Muslim, whether the targeted children in Iraq are Christian or Muslim, whether the starved and besieged children on the mountainside in Kurdistan are Yazidis, Muslims or Christians.

When the disciples ask Christ in our Gospel reading (Matthew 18: 1-5, 10, 12-14) ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ he calls a child, puts the child among them, and tells them: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”

We are not told whether this child is a boy or girl, Jew or Samaritan, Greek or Roman, a street urchin or the child of one the Disciples.

Indeed, in all likelihood, the Disciples never noticed, for at that time a child was of no economic value and a burden on families until the child could earn his or her own way, or become the equivalent of a pension scheme for parents.

But Christ tells us: “Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven … it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.”

The Kingdom of Heaven is like little things. The Gospel readings for the past few Sundays have been reminding us that the Kingdom of Heaven is like:

● Sowing a seed;

● Giving a nest to the birds of the air;

● Mixing yeast;

● Turning small amounts of flour into generous portions of bread;

● Finding hidden treasure;

● Rushing out in joy;

● Selling all that I have because something I have found is worth more – much, much more, again and again;

● Searching for pearls;

● Finding just one pearl;

● Casting a net into the sea;

● Catching an abundance of fish;

● Drawing that abundance of fish ashore, realising there is too much there for my personal needs, and sharing it;

● Writing about it so that others can enjoy the benefit and rewards of treasures new and old.

And this afternoon we are told that Kingdom is like a little child – imagine a child playing on a beach in Gaza, falsely feeling secure in a school in Gaza, maimed and injured in a mother’s arms at home, dying in a Gaza hospital, the victim of a car bomb in Baghdad, starving and despised on a mountain side in northern Iraq.

In the face of these images I find myself thinking of the prophets, like Ezekiel in our Old Testament reading, who are called to speaking “words of lamentation and mourning and woe” and compelled to “go to the house of Israel and speak [God’s] very words to them.”

But I have hope too, for I hear Christ’s words today: “in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven … it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.”

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:

Blessed are you, O Lord,
and blessed are those who observe and keep your law:
Help us to seek you with our whole heart,
to delight in your commandments
and to walk in the glorious liberty
given us by your Son, Jesus Christ.

Post Communion Prayer:

Strengthen for service, Lord,
the hands that holy things have taken;
may the ears which have heard your word
be deaf to clamour and dispute;
may the tongues which have sung your praise be free from deceit;
may the eyes which have seen the tokens of your love
shine with the light of hope;
and may the bodies which have been fed with your body
be refreshed with the fullness of your life;
glory to you for ever.

Canon Patrick Comerford is lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This reflection was shared at the Mid-Day Eucharist in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on Tuesday 12 August 2014.

Matthew 18: 1-5, 10, 12-14

1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ 2 He called a child, whom he put among them, 3 and said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.4 Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

10 ‘Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven. 12 What do you think? If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? 13 And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. 14 So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.

When they saw him walking on the lake, he said, ‘do not be afraid’

‘I líonta Dé go gcastar sinn, May we meet in God’s nets’ … a modern stained-glass window in Saint Maur’s Church, Rush (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Saint Bartholomew’s Church,
Clyde Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin

10 August 2014

The Eighth Sunday after Trinity

11 a.m.: The Solemn Eucharist

Readings:

Genesis 37: 1-4, 12-28; Psalm 105: 1-6, 16-22, 45b; Romans 10: 5-15; Matthew 14: 22-33.

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

Since last weekend, each of us is aware of the real living – and dying – conditions for soldiers in World War I.

We have not descended into glorification and over romanticism. Instead, this centenary of commemorations has started with a stark realism that has helped many of us realise the brutality of war and the fears faced constantly by soldiers and civilians over the five years of World War I.

On Monday night, in our household, we switched off the lights at 11 p.m. and lit not one but two candles to remember two grandfathers:

● Stephen Edward Comerford of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, who caught malaria in Thessaloniki and was sent back from Greece to Dublin in May 1916, dying in hospital in January 1921.

● Patrick Culley of the Royal Army Medical Corps, who spent World War I in the trenches and came home with what was then called “shell shock” and what we now know to be Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Thessaloniki is an attractive city today, but the waterfront was a sump during World War I (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Some time ago, we spent a few days walking through the streets of Thessaloniki, imagining the nightmares my grandfather must have seen: young men, half his age, young enough to be his sons, wounded maimed and dying; imagining his own fears and nightmares as he wondered whether he would ever return home to his wife and children in Ranelagh; the frostbite and diseases he or his comrades were afflicted with in the winter when they were deployed into other parts of the Balkans; the stench of the dead water in the sump of the Thermaic Gulf (Θερμαϊκός Κόλπος) on the waterfront in Thessaloniki as he was bitten and infected with malaria.

And then I imagined his nightmares, night after night, after he came home.

The startling truth, though, is that modern warfare today, 100 years after the start of World War I, is worse than the worst nightmares of those who came home from Gallipoli, the Somme and the fields of Flanders.

I was reminded of that in the past week as I spoke publicly at the Hiroshima Day commemorations and was interviewed about the present violence in the Gaza Strip.

What are your worst nightmares?

As we grow up and mature, we tend to have fewer fears of the outside world, and as adults we begin to cope with the fears we once had as children, by turning threats into opportunities.

The fears I had as a child – of snakes, of the wind, of storms at sea, of lightning – are no longer the stuff of recurring nightmares they were as a child – I have learned to be cautious, to be sensible and to keep my distance, and to be in awe of God’s creation.

But most of us have recurring dreams that are vivid and that have themes that keep repeating themselves. They fall into a number of genres, and you will be relieved to know if you suffer from them that most psychotherapists identify a number of these types of dreams that most of us deal with in our sleep at various stages in adult life.

They include dreams about:

● Drowning.

● Finding myself unprepared for a major function or event, whether it is social or work-related.

● Flying or floating in the air, but then falling suddenly.

● Being caught naked in public.

● Missing a train or a bus or a plane.

● Caught in loos or lifts that do not work, or overwork themselves.

● Calling out in a crowd but failing to vocalise my scream or not being heard in the crowd or recognised.

● Falling, falling into an abyss.

There are others. But in sleep the brain can act as a filter or filing cabinet, helping us to process, deal with and put aside what we have found difficult to understand in our waking hours, or to try to find ways of dealing with our lack of confidence, feelings of inadequacy, with the ways we confuse gaining attention with receiving love, or with our needs to be accepted, affirmed and loved.

In our Old Testament reading this morning (Genesis 37: 1-4, 12-28), Joseph is dismissed by his brothers, is seen by his brothers as a threat, because he is a “dreamer.” His perhaps naïve behaviour in his youth is threatening them as the older brothers, the adults.

But rather than confronting their fears and dealing with them, they decide to get rid of Joseph – it’s another play-out of the constant theme of shooting the messenger rather than listening to the message.

We sometimes think of the idealists in our midst as dreamers or day-dreamers. They imagine that things can be done another way, they point to potentials or possibilities, they confront us with our greatest fears. But, like Joseph’s brothers, we often confuse dreams that help us deal with our worst fears and the worst fears themselves.

Saint Peter’s plight in our Gospel reading (Matthew 14: 22-33) this morning seems to be the working out of a constant, recurring, vivid dream of the type that many of us experience at some stage: the feelings of drowning, floating and falling suddenly, being in a crowd and yet alone, calling out and not being heard, or not being recognised for who we are.

Peter sees Christ walking on the lake or floating effortlessly above the water. At first, he thinks he is seeing a ghost. But then Christ calls to him, and Peter responds.

Once he recognises Christ, Peter gets out of the boat, starts walking on the water, and comes towards Jesus. But he loses his confidence when he notices the strong wind, he is frightened, and he begins to sink.

He cries out: “Lord, save me!” Christ immediately reaches out his hand and catches him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

They get back into the boat, the wind ceases. And those in the boat worship him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Was the sight of Christ walking on the water an illusion?

Was Peter’s idea that he could walk on the water the product of an over-worked mind while it was sleeping?

Did he realise he was unprepared for the great encounter?

Did the wind cease when he woke from the dream?

All of these questions are over-analytical and fail to deal with the real encounter that takes place.

Even before the Resurrection, in his frailty, in his weakness, in his humble humanity, Peter calls out to Christ: “Lord, save me” (verse 30).

Do the others in the boat fall down at Christ’s feet and worship him because he can walk on water, because he can lift a drowning man out of the depths, or because they recognise that in Christ they can find the end to all their worst dreams and nightmares?

Saint Paul almost chides us for these questions, reminding us that people have a variety of experiences that help them to grow in faith (see Romans 10: 10).

The delusion of walking on water … learning to paddle standing up on a sailboard off Ireland’s Eye (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

In the sunshine last Monday afternoon, we took a small boat from Howth Harbour to the small island of Ireland’s Eye. The waters were calm, the sun was shining, there were few clouds in the sky, the tiny beaches were covered in golden sand. A few people were sailing in the water between Howth Head and the island, and two or three men were learning to paddle standing up on sailboards.

But, in this come-and-go summer, we knew, as they say, to expect the unexpected. For a brief few minutes, black clouds suddenly moved across the whole scene. The weather could have turned, we could have found ourselves stranded on the island, or we could have found the waters started to become choppy, which can be a frightening experience, even on a short 15-minute hop like this.

As seasoned fishers and sailors, the Disciples know not to try walking on water. They know the risk of sudden storms and swells, and they know the safety of a good boat, as long as it has a good crew.

An icon of the Church as a boat, including Christ, the Apostles and the Church Fathers (Icon: Deacon Matthew Garrett, www.holy-icons.com)

Since the early history of the Church, the boat has symbolised the Church.

The bark (barque or barchetta) symbolises the Church tossed on the sea of disbelief, worldliness, and persecution but finally reaching safe harbour. Part of the imagery comes from the ark saving Noah’s family during the Flood (I Peter 3: 20-21). Christ protects Peter’s boat and the Disciples on the stormy Sea of Galilee (see also Mark 6: 45-52; John 6 16-21). The mast forms the shape of the Cross.

It is an image that appears in Apostolic Constitutions and the writings of Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria. We still retain the word nave for the main part of the church, which, architecturally often looks like an up-turned boat.

So, this morning, I do not want any of us to risk walking on water, or to play stupidly in boats in choppy waters or storms.

But if we are to dream dreams for our parish, for the Church, for the Kingdom of God, we need to be aware that it comes at the risk of feeling we are being sold out by those we see as brothers and sisters, and risk being seen as dreamers rather than people of action by others: for our dreams may be their nightmares.

If we are going to dream dreams for our parish, for the Church, for the Church, for the Kingdom of God, we may need to step out of our safety zones, our comfort zones, and know that this comes with a risk warning.

And if we are going to dream dreams for our parish, for the Church, for the Kingdom of God, we need to keep our eyes focussed on Christ, and to know that the Church is there to bring us on that journey.

Let us dream dreams, take risks for the Kingdom of God, step outside the box, but let us keep our eyes on Christ and remember that the boat, the Church, is essential for our journey, and let us continue to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

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:

Blessed are you, O Lord,
and blessed are those who observe and keep your law:
Help us to seek you with our whole heart,
to delight in your commandments
and to walk in the glorious liberty
given us by your Son, Jesus Christ.

Post Communion Prayer:

Strengthen for service, Lord,
the hands that holy things have taken;
may the ears which have heard your word
be deaf to clamour and dispute;
may the tongues which have sung your praise be free from deceit;
may the eyes which have seen the tokens of your love
shine with the light of hope;
and may the bodies which have been fed with your body
be refreshed with the fullness of your life;
glory to you for ever.

Canon Patrick Comerford is lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. This sermon was preached at the Solemn Eucharist in Saint Bartholomew’s Church, Ballsbridge, on Sunday 10 August 2014.