All Saints (Sunday or otherwise)

1 John 3.1-3; Matthew 5.1-12

In my earlier days of following the lectionary I often wondered why this reading of the Beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount was set for All Saints. Gradually I began to realise that those we call saints of the Church would probably show something of the qualities or virtues that Jesus speaks of like poverty of spirit, meekness, a hunger for righteousness. Later it began to dawn on me that if we were serious about our Christian life and our walk with God then it would be desirable that we too should be able to see these same qualities developing in ourselves. And now most recently I've come to the same mind that at least the Eastern Church has with regard to these Beatitudes, that these qualities or virtues aren't simply desirable in a Christian but are as St. Peter of Damaskos calls them, commandments of God Himself, indeed he calls these Beatitudes The Seven Commandments. (The Philokalia volume 3 A Treasury of Divine Knowledge)

We usually think of the 10 Commandments in the Old Testament when we think of 'Commandments'. But Jesus came, as He said, to 'fulfil the Law and the Prophets'. And so His own life and way of living in His relating to God and others is of itself a commandment to all who profess to be His followers, His disciples. When we are baptised we are baptised 'into' Christ, into His life and so for us there is no other way but His. So in that sense what Jesus tells us, the baptised, of a blessed life is a commandment to us to follow that same way. It's not simply desirable or an option. And so these Beatitudes, as well as showing us who are the 'blessed' also shows us what we are obliged to become ourselves, if we continue to profess our Christian faith and life. And I suppose that's why St. Paul could call all Christians saints and not simply those whose lives are specially marked out by the Church as 'saintly'. These Beatitudes could form a series of Bible studies giving hours to each one. We haven't got time to linger so a brief word about them, as I said, seeing them as commandments of God. And I have to thank St. Peter of Damaskos for this.

In this modern Western world and culture, the virtues we read about in the Beatitudes, I think are interpreted by people of all ages as displaying some sort of weakness of character. For instance you wouldn't find them talked about as qualities that people appearing in the Dragon's Den or The Apprentice would show. And that's where so very many people have got our Christian faith wrong. They come to the Bible and Christianity and they interpret it as weakness when in fact the exact opposite is the truth, and if you look at the lives of those who we call the Saints of the Church you will see that all of them had a peculiar strength and it's a strength that comes out of these virtues. I'm just gong to look at the first four, because our interpretation of those will help us to look on the rest in new light, with a new depth and determine their strength anew.

Poverty of spirit is the starting point; what used to be called in the old days and we see so little of nowadays - ' the Fear of God'. Psalm 111 says 'the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom'. It's that relationship with God that sees and recognises that we are totally dependent upon Him and that all we have and are comes from Him. And it recognises in that, the unfathomable depth of love and mercy God has for us, so much so that He gives His own Son to die so that we might have life, that is the life of the Spirit of God Himself. And it was Jesus who said that without Him we can do nothing but at the same time with God all things are possible. Maybe St. Paul summed this up when he said 'when I am weak then I am strong'.

I think we always get the next one wrong. It doesn't mean mourning and grieving about people who have died. It means mourning our sinfulness and the sinfulness of our neighbour. It means grieving the fact that try as we might there's always room for improvement in ourselves, that we constantly hurt one another and are an offence to one another and at the same time offend against God who made us in His image and to be like Him. 'Blessed are those who mourn' is about knowing oneself in the greatest of depths because it's only as we know ourself that we can be all that God desires of us. And it's about lamenting the way of the world and the waywardness of the world and the self-possession of the world. It's only when you know yourself and have a realistic view of the world that you can do anything positive for humankind.

Meekness again isn't some sort of shrinking violet weakness. It's a humility that accepts what comes and lives with it and learns from it and grows through it. It's not what happens to you in life that matters it's what you do about it that counts. And meekness is standing firm in all that life brings. And by that I don't mean being hard like concrete but being supple like a tree, standing firm but bending to the wind. Meekness doesn't mean being compliant but it does mean being pliable.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. And this is the power house of these virtues. It means desiring with all your heart for truth, goodness, mercy and love to prevail in all things; the Truth, goodness, mercy and love of God. It's only fuelled with this great desire that anyone can do good in the world, can represent and present Christ to the world. It's the power house of our prayer and of our life in God.

So we can see from just these four vitues how they represent not weakness but strength. When Jesus tells the story, at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, of the man who built his house on rock, it was His teaching and His way of life that is the rock on which we build the house which is our own life. And these Beatitudes are that rock. All the rest of the detail of the Sermon on the Mount itself is built on these opening words. And these virtues, because they are the Christian life are commandments for all of us that profess to be followers of Jesus, all of us who have been baptised in His name. And that's why, if our own lives are built on this rock, we too can be called saints, just as those we remember today and each on his or her own day during our Church's year.

So as we remember all the Saints today, let us think about what it was that made them who they were, because it's just the same that makes us Christians and saints today.

Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity

1 Thessalonians 1.10; Matthew 22.15-22

Nobody likes paying taxes. It was as true 2,000 years ago as it is today. And the more money people have, it seems, the less they like paying taxes. And there are those who will go to any lengths to avoid paying taxes. And so it's with some amusement perhaps that we read a story out of the gospel of a former tax collector today, that's centred around paying taxes. I wonder of St. Matthew had a smile on his face when he recorded this story about Jesus and the chief priests and Pharisees.

The chief priests and the Pharisees come across in St. Matthew's gospel as the bad guys, amongst others. In reality they weren't rotten to the core as we might perceive them when we read of them. They were religous people, very devout and believed that their God and their way to God was right and true and good and holy. The trouble was, Jesus had come along, a man of their own religion, indeed a rabbi, a teacher and what he'd said had begun to turn their whole world upside down. He'd challenged them in ways they weren't accustomed to. He'd got them to think about their God and their religion in a different way. He'd said at the same time that He hadn't come to do away with it but to fulfil it.

But as with lots of things and people we don't understand, with things and people that challenge the way we live and see the world, the Pharisees and chief priests, like we do sometimes, felt threatened. They felt threatened by Jesus. What He'd done and said had been getting under their skin for a while and they didn't like it. And as time went by they liked it less and less, and liked Him less and less. Eventually they'd had enough. Jesus was too big a challenge. And we already know what the outcome was.

Along the way they tried to trip Jesus up here and there. They were very learned men, experienced and wise in their own religion. They were no part-timers when it came to living their religious life. They knew what they were talking about and not just from their books but from experience too. And maybe behind some of the questions they asked Jesus was a real struggle for them; things they had difficulty working through themselves. And I guess the question they asked Jesus, that we've read about today was one that they couldn't really find a satisfactory answer to themselves, whether or not they used it, as St. Matthew says, to entrap Jesus.

The point that this question reaches after is who do we pay allegiance to? Who comes first in our life? Who in fact do we recognise as having ultimate authority? Is it God, or the civil authorities?  And when there is a potential conflict, as the chief priests and Pharisees felt there was, because Roman rule was imposed upon the Jewish nation, who do you serve, ultimately? We still struggle with those sorts of questions today; especially when we might believe that the present government's policies are unjust or unfair to sections of the population. As Christians, do we speak out against the government, or do we keep quiet and go along with things? Do we recognise an authority higher than that of the government, in God Himself from where we get our sense of justice and mercy? And if so do we bring this to the notice of our civil authorities and in what way?

It was a trick question that the Pharisees put to Jesus. And their buttering Him up with flattery before they asked it didn't make it any less obvious. They'd hoped He'd condemn Himself as an outlaw by saying that as Jews, and bound by the Law of Moses, that it was unlawful to acceded to the demands of the secular authority and that they shouldn't do it. I'm not sure that the Law of Moses would have said any such thing. But anyway, Jesus sees through their little ruse and gives and answer that doesn't satisfy them but satisfies His predicament. 'Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor's and to God the things that are God's.'

Now we might think that Jesus was just getting Himself out of a spot and that there are deficiencies in His answer and that it was a bit disingenuous. But we might go to St. Paul to help us with this because we might remember, from his letter to the Romans that he said we should obey the secular authorities because they are put there by God. In this day and age we'd probably feel that that answer is quite a bit deficient. But at the very least, for the time being, every despotic and tyrannical government in the world, if it hasn't got God's approval, it has God's sufferance.

What I think we have to do is to look behind Jesus's answer to the question put to Him and see it from His point of view. He was bringing in the Kingdom of God, as the Church is today. And yet the Kingdom of God is already established in Jesus Himself. Paying taxes is a temporal thing, a thing of this world with limited significance as is every government of this and any age. All come and go within the eternal Kingdom of God the Father. And it's in that context that Jesus could answer as He did. He wasn't putting the emperor on a par with God in His answer, far from it. Paying taxes, and the workings of worldly kingdoms is quite insignificant compared to the things of the Kingdom of God. If we put the Kingdom of God first in our lives then the paying of taxes and obeying the laws of earthly kingdoms, providing they are just, fair and merciful is something we as Christians ought to get on with. And it's in that vein that Jesus could answer, 'Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor's and to God the things that are God's.' Or as Jesus had said, or something like it some time before, 'seek first the Kingdom of God and everything else will then fall into place.'