Ascension Day Eucharist

Ascension Day Eucharist with the midweek congregation of St. Cuthbert, Benfieldside.

There's also a Deanery celebration of the Ascension of the Lord at 7pm in Christ Church, Consett - preacher: the Archdeacon of Durham.

Keeping the commandments - the way of love

6th Sunday of Easter – Eucharist – 14.v.2023

(Acts 17.22-31; 1 Peter 3.13-22; John 14.15-21)

Easter Day may seem a long time ago, but in the Church’s Calendar we’re still celebrating Easter-tide. The season of Easter lasts seven weeks in total. Ascension Day is celebrated this coming Thursday - but it’s a part of the celebration of Christ’s Resurrection, and the Easter season itself still has two more weeks to run until we get to Pentecost, the time when we look to the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples.

So Easter is a long season. Everything really depends on it. There is an argument that for Christians there are really only two seasons in the year: Easter, and “Easter’s coming.” The Resurrection is the event which changes everything for us - new life from the grave, and the risen Christ breaking in to change the lives of ordinary people so that they will do extraordinary things.

Without Easter, there’s no basis for Christian faith. But there’s very little in the way of written record when it comes to the events around Jesus’ Resurrection. St. Mark seems originally to have ended the Gospel which bears his name simply with the tomb discovered to be empty and the women who had visited it running away, because “they were afraid.” The other Gospels record various appearances of the risen Jesus to the disciples, but not many… And when Jesus does appear, he does not say very much.

I think that’s important. Jesus does not argue people into belief. He simply comes to them in their need. He brings healing to the sick, he feeds the hungry, he tells fishermen where to look for a catch of fish, he calls people by name. Jesus feels for people and touches their hearts. When Mary Magdalene fails to recognise him in the garden by his tomb, he speaks her name - that’s when she knows who he is. After two disciples fail to recognise him in a long walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus, it’s when he takes bread and breaks it that his presence is made known. He comes to other disciples behind locked doors, not to make a speech but to show the wounds his risen body still bears and to breathe the Holy Spirit upon them. And in a final appearance by the Sea of Galilee he’s a stranger recognised by the disciples when he prepares breakfast for them. The risen Jesus goes on doing in a few short weeks after his Resurrection what he had been doing throughout his years of ministry - he feeds people, he heals them, he knows them as the people they are, and he enables them to be the people God is calling. 

In his final meeting with the disciple Peter, who had denied knowing him three times at the hour of his greatest need, there is no recrimination or condemnation, but instead the probing and questioning Peter needs: “Do you love me?” - asked three times. And a commission, “Feed my sheep, tend my flock.” Jesus asks that question of us. We too can share in the care of his people.

What Jesus is doing in that handful of appearances after his Resurrection, he is still doing with us. That’s how Jesus relates to his people. To know us, call us by name, feed us and heal us. And it’s all possible by his love - a love we can share.

That’s what today’s Gospel reading is about. It’s not a story from the accounts of what followed the Resurrection. It comes from St. John’s narrative of the Last Supper. But it is a telling of what will follow on from the Resurrection - that Jesus will send the “Advocate,” his Holy Spirit, to be with his people for ever. “I will not leave you orphaned,” Jesus says… “You will see me; because I live, you also will live.” 

And the way we live is the way of love. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments… those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

When he is asked how we should live, Jesus sums up everything which has come down from the Jewish Law in just two commandments. Sometimes we use them at the beginning of our services:

The first commandment is this: 

‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is the only Lord.  

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, 

with all your soul, and with all your mind, 

and with all your strength.’  

The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’  

There is no other commandment greater than these. 

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Love is the big deal. The marriage service begins with words from one of the Letters of St. John: “God is love. Those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.” Love is what makes the difference. Love is what makes lives properly lived possible.

That’s something to remember this coming week - Christian Aid Week. It’s a week when we can show concern for poorer people around the world by giving money which may relieve them in their need and aid them in their development. But it’s also Christian Aid, so what we give should come out of our everyday concern and our desire to put love into practice. Love requires that we look beyond ourselves. Love brings us into a bigger picture of understanding. And it may ask, what do we hope for?

Three years ago - in the middle of May - we were in the midst of the first pandemic Lockdown. Nevertheless, like now, it was Easter-tide - and hope was not to be denied. Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, had found himself writing a weekly reflection for the people of his local church. The 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe had just passed, and he found hope in that from that terrible conflict people emerged with determination to change their nation’s life for the better. They didn’t simply celebrate relief at an end to conflict. They went on to create new opportunities for all in education, health and social provision. Within a short time they would create the Welfare State. Things did change dramatically: “This country had become a safer place for the sick, the poor and the elderly.”

From this looking into our history, Rowan Williams asked the question, what do we hope for now? After six years of conflict in war our nation went on to build new hopes. After the hardships and conflict of the Pandemic what could we hope for? He wrote three years ago:

Will the end of the lockdown see us finding the strength to face and name some of the things that have stood in the way of fairness, truth and security? That would mean noticing who has been paying the heaviest price - the ethnic communities and social groups that have been disproportionately affected, the people with mental health challenges who have had to live through nightmares in isolation; under-protected and poorly rewarded workers in the NHS and elsewhere who have had little choice but to go on exposing themselves to risk so that the rest of us can have some basic amenities; young people whose employment prospects have disappeared overnight. If these have paid most heavily, we have to ask what needs doing to guarantee a better deal for them.

Three years on, I’m afraid we seem not to have made much - if any - progress in addressing these issues. The plight of the poorest has worsened as the various costs of living have spiralled. Hospital waiting lists have lengthened to life-threatening degrees. New arrangements coming into effect this week will make higher education for the less well-off still more costly than it is now. And to blame this so much on refugees arriving in small boats and the war in Ukraine is to fail to take responsibility for the positive action we can take to make life better.

The Government needs a political programme which is honest, just and compassionate. Regardless of our own political beliefs we can all seek to put those same qualities into practice. They stem from Jesus’ basic requirement that we live out his commandment to love. Through God’s love he has touched his people, given his life for our sake and risen to bring new hope. Love is the way God holds us. Love is the way for our world. Love God - and love your neighbour as yourself.

Not to be served, but to serve…

I’m writing in the week which leads to the Coronation of King Charles III. The order of service which will be used was published only a few days ago. There’s been some debate about one particular aspect where, in place of the previous “Homage of the Peers,” there’s a general invitation to those in the Abbey and even in front of their television sets to swear allegiance to the King:

Archbishop of Canterbury:

I call upon all persons of goodwill of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and of the other Realms and the Territories to make their homage, in heart and voice, to their undoubted King, defender of all.

All who so desire, in the Abbey, and elsewhere, say together:

I swear that I will pay true allegiance to Your Majesty, and to your heirs and successors according to law. So help me God.

Swearing allegiance to the Crown is nothing new to the clergy. I’ve done it at my Ordination and then with each new post I’ve taken on throughout my ministry. But I think it will be strange to do this from a sofa in your living room - even if you get off it and stand up!

So I’m glad to point out a more positive reciprocity. At the beginning of the service the King is to be welcomed by a young person “in the name of the King of Kings.” And King Charles is to respond: “In his name, and after his example, I come not to be served but to serve.”

There will be much ceremony and presentation of strange regalia. But the first thing to be given to the King is a Bible - with these words:

“Sir: to keep you ever mindful of the law and the Gospel of God as the Rule for the whole life and government of Christian Princes, receive this Book, the most valuable thing that this world affords. Here is Wisdom; This is the royal Law; These are the lively Oracles of God.”

Let’s all remember that - and learn from it.                          

Martin Jackson