Sunday next before Lent 2018 – morning
Sunday 11th February 2018
1 before Lent (Quinquagesima)
2 Cor 4. 3-6
Mark 9. 2-9
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
The Anglican Church is rightly claimed to be founded on three pillars or principles…. Anyone remember what they are? – Scripture, Tradition and Reason.
Scripture is important as the Word of God – a lens through which we try to understand our world and work out how, as Christians, we believe we are called to live.
And we use our Reason to interpret and worry at it and apply it to the world we live in – which in some ways is quite like the world that Jesus knew and in other ways is totally different!
Then we have Tradition! That word always puts me in mind of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, breaking into his song and dance as he wrestles in his mind with the tenets of his Jewish faith, which anchor him and give him stability in a world which is changing very rapidly around him and which is deeply threatening to people like him – to Jews living in Imperial Russia. Against this, he tries to reconcile the needs and happiness of his beloved daughters as they reach adulthood and begin to make their way in the world and forge new relationships. Relationships which – like many fathers before and since – he finds difficult to accept.
We should all be proud of our traditions. We like to do things like we have done them all our lives, and like our ancestors used to do them, before us. Tradition guides us down a comfortably familiar path, helping us to do the right thing without having to agonize over it, because those are the things we have always done. There is much to learn from tradition, and it is the foundation of society. On the whole, it works quite well, providing the ‘glue’ that helps us stick together as a community – as a church dare I say….
Yesterday your PCC and I spent some hours imagining what the future might look like, next year and five years from now…. Well, one thing I can tell you now is that 5 years from now things will have changed. We will all be five years older, the leadership team will look very different, and there will be other changes in this worshipping community. Hopefully new people will have arrived and become part of God’s family in this place and will bring with them their own stories, their own traditions…. and you will have adapted and changed. As in fact you always have, even though maybe not so consciously.
St Peter was brought up in the Jewish traditions – as was Jesus of course, and these stretched back a very long way. One of their customs was to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles / Booths/ Tents. On that night they would celebrate with prayer and then sleep in a tent, in the open air, or on the flat roof of their house – perhaps with some branches and palm leaves above them. This was partly a kind of harvest festival, for when the crops are to be brought in, there is no time to keep going home. Better to sleep in the fields for an early start and a late finish! But even earlier, the Jews were originally a nomadic people, wandering from place to place with their flocks. When Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt and into the Desert, they were led directly by God in the form of a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire in the night. But this 24 hour travelling could not be sustained indefinitely – especially not with families and the elderly to care for. So Moses made a tent called the “tent of meeting”, outside the camp, so that people could go there to say their prayers…. You might say it was the very first church or temple.
It was a visible sign that the invisible God was still there with them – as he is still with us. When it was time for them to move, they packed up the tent and carried it before them to the next campsite. So it became a sign that God is always with us, but always on the move.
When Jesus took his friends up the mountain and was transfigured before them, shining brightly with Moses and Elijah, Peter wanted to keep them there. You don’t find houses on mountain tops, so he offered to erect three tents so that they could stay up there for a good long while. Then he would know where Jesus and the authors of the Scriptures were when he needed them!
But of course, as the Gospel tells us, Peter was misguided and impulsive as always. In a short while Moses and Elijah were gone, Jesus had returned to the familiar presence they knew so well, and he led them down off the mountain towards a very challenging future in Jerusalem. Peter wanted to trap religion in a tent, but you can’t do that, because it is always changing.
The Romans had a saying, “Times change, and we change with them”. Our traditions provide us with a stable foundation, but we must not cling to them.
The foundations of the gospel never vary, but the words we use to express them must change as the people around us and we change our attitudes, our metaphors and our vocabulary. Traditional worship is very beautiful, but we must be constantly alert to the views and needs of those around us, or they will reject us and the good news we seek to share with them.
That is not to say that we reject the past completely and all at once, but we must continue to be flexible, always ready to explore new ideas and new ways of doing things, because God is constantly on the move…. and as someone once said, the Church is not an institution (or shouldn’t be) it is a movement. Many would say that God is most active currently outside the churches and in Society at large. Social changes have been so rapid and radical in my lifetime it takes one’s breath away at times, but as Rowan Williams was always keen to say, “Mission consists of watching for where God is active in the world and joining in!”
God leads us to new challenges, new experiences and new opportunities to love our neighbours and spread the Good News of God’s love. That can sound a bit scary, but we are promised the guidance and encouragement of the Holy Spirit, and once you take your courage in both hands and make the leap of faith, following Jesus is exhilarating and fun.
Amen.