Second Sunday of Epiphany – morning
Sunday 14th January 2018
Epiphany 2
Revelation 5.1-10
John 1. 43 – 51
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
Those who preach have an interesting challenge. How to make our faith – which contains eternal truths – relevant in a world where change is everything? Do we go with the secular, or hold fast to the sacred?
Well I for one find it both fascinating and challenging that Jesus himself faced just this sort of challenge in his time too.
There were many orthodox and devout Jews in the time of Jesus who considered that every word of the Hebrew Scriptures, and particularly the Laws contained therein, had to be obeyed absolutely and to the letter. They were God’s commandments after all, transmitted to his people through Moses.
So, for example, if God said that no work should be done on the Sabbath – but your donkey or mule – or even a member of your family got injured and needed help on the Sabbath, then too bad. Nothing could be done until the following day. God said!
Then Jesus came along and said, in effect, this is nonsense! God cares more about your motive than he does about the letter of the Law. God loves you and expects you to love your neighbour as yourself (and your donkey, cow, goat and sheep for that matter). If you are ruled by anything in this life, it is the rule of Love that should be paramount. Not the rule of Law! The Law is there to serve the interests of humanity, not the other way around. Kindness and basic humanity require nothing less…
This is why the Pharisees accused Jesus of telling people not to obey the Law of Moses, the most revered of the Old Testament Prophets. In fact Jesus did no such thing and he himself was a devoted student of, and adherent to the words of Moses. But Jesus claimed instead that he had come in order to fulfil the words of Moses, not to destroy them!
This is the background to Philip finding Nathaniel and saying to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote. Jesus, son of Joseph from Nazareth.”
And Nathaniel’s response at first is full of scorn and sarcasm. Maybe he was trying to impress others around him with his wit, – we don’t know. But we can see only too well, today, how words expressed in the heat of the moment – words that maybe we think are funny when we utter them, can be regarded as cruel, ill-informed and can rebound on the speaker in unexpected ways… Being sarcastic about the origins of others is never acceptable. And if we are to love our neighbour as ourselves, we can no more deride the nature of the country from which they may have come, than we can mock our own ancestry and culture.
Nathaniel probably never imagined that his words would still be remembered and talked about over 2000 years after he lived. Presidents however, know full well that anything they say is likely to be ‘on the record’ and should think before they speak!
So if we take nothing more from this morning’s readings than that, we will have found a message that is totally contemporary and fit for today!
We are commanded to love our neighbour, no matter where they come from; no matter what their creed or culture. God is not prejudiced or discriminatory. So neither should we be.
Two TV programmes this week have brought this home to me. – One was “A Vicar’s life” which started on Friday, featuring four clergy from our neighbouring diocese of Hereford. And at least one of them – the Vicar of Much Wenlock – started out as a curate in this diocese – so we have a bit of a vested interest! One of his parishioners for whom he was conducting a wedding, spoke about how the Vicar had made church seem relevant to her and her fiancé as he prepared them for their marriage – good for him! The other was a late-night little gem – telling about the modern-day exodus of Orthodox Hasidic Jews from Stamford Hill to Canvey Island in Essex. The reason for their relocation is economic – they are getting priced out of decent housing in London and, with large families to accommodate, Canvey is a more affordable and attractive proposition. But how will the locals respond in this part of Essex that is not traditionally well disposed to diversity or the ‘other’ – it voted very solidly for Brexit for example. But one man decided to make a difference. He enlisted the help of the civic authorities – the local Mayor, and the local Clergy to hold out a hand of friendship to a group of people who find it very hard to assimilate – indeed who hold themselves aloof through their religious observance. And – while there will always be much that separates the communities on Canvey, both sides were brought to understand the other a little more and to indentify the common bonds of humanity that unite, rather than divide them.
The New Testament does not tell us that OT law can be totally ignored. It is not a moral free-for-all; anything goes sort of libertine existence. Jesus confirms to us that the Law of love does not cancel out the Law of obedience to God, but rather brings out its inner meaning. It is also much harder than simply obeying a set of rules – we are not computers simply working through flow charts of commands. Rather we have the power and responsibility to interpret God’s words in the light of the Love that God shows to each and every one of us through the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
And even if Nazareth is so insignificant a place that it does not even feature on contemporary maps of the Holy Land, that does not give anyone the right to pour scorn or think the less of him as a result.
For He is the one judged worthy to unlock the word of God; to break the seals and unfold the scroll – and we hope to bring enlightenment to all – even Presidents perhaps?