Sung Eucharist, 11.00am,

9 July 2023

Today’s gospel begins with Jesus lamenting a generation who have no judgement, no discernment.  They do not know when to celebrate: ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance.’  They do not know when to be sad: ‘we wailed, and you did not mourn.’   This generation shows the same lack of judgement in relation to John the Baptist, and Jesus: the first is sober and serious, eating a strange diet in the desert, and he is labeled as demon-possessed.  Jesus is a more convivial character, and he is dismissed as a glutton and drunkard, who associates with all the wrong people. 

Well, there has been plenty of eating and drinking in and around the Cathedral over the last fortnight or so, as we’ve celebrated a quarter century of priesthood with Canon Angela, paid tribute to a wonderful Head Guide in Margaret Wilson as she retired from that role, and remembered with thanksgiving the remarkable life of Alan Williamson following a beautiful funeral.  I’ve been paying particularly close attention to the refreshments, both solid and liquid, ahead of my son’s wedding here in this cathedral, which will be followed by drinks and eats in the nave.

These might seem like very different events; beginnings, endings, anniversaries, but there are important common themes: themes of listening, and of looking, with judgement, and discernment, and wisdom: of knowing when to celebrate, and when to mourn. 

I have yet to discover whether or not my son’s fiancé intends to wear a veil at their wedding.   This seems to be less common nowadays, which in my view is a shame, for when the bride draws back from the veil from her face, it is a moment in the marriage service that is both moving and highly symbolic.  The unveiling signifies that now there is clear vision, a couple looking at each other with love and faithfulness, truth and honesty.   And then in the vows they promise to continue looking, for the rest of their lives.  This is both wonderful and demanding; because over the years in any flourishing marriage there will be moments of vulnerability and of truth-telling.   Indeed part of the privilege of having a life-long partner who loves you, is that they can tell you the home truths you need to hear. 

The wedding service compares the marriage of two people, to the relationship between Christ and his church.   God unveils his face to us in Jesus, ‘the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ’, as St Paul expresses it.  This is the gentleness and humbleness of God, spoken of both in today’s Gospel, and in the Old Testament, where the King arrives not in a chariot but ‘humble and riding on a donkey’. 

In a commentary on today’s Gospel attributed to John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople in the late fourth century, God is imagined speaking to us as follows:

‘Come and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart.  I do not make a show of words; I have left you the proof of my deeds.  You can see that I am gentle and humble in heart from what I have become.  Consider my nature, reflect upon my dignity, and marvel at [what] I have shown you.  Think of where I came from, and of where I am as I speak to you.  Heaven is my throne, and yet I speak to you standing on the earth!’

And yet there is risk and pain and sacrificial generosity in God reaching out to us in human form: when God shows us his true face, He risks rejection and misunderstanding, being treated as a stranger, not recognized for who he truly is.  Jesus is taken for a glutton and drunkard, associating with all the wrong people, because there is something in human beings that struggles with unconditional love and what it tells us about ourselves.  The light of Christ can painfully reveal our human failings, such as those Paul describes in our second reading today; there is part of us that wants to do good, and yet all too often we do the opposite: ‘I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.’

This burden that Paul describes, of sin and evil thwarting human virtue, cannot be resolved by willpower alone.   The healing required can only be found face to face with God in Christ, who invites us to share our burdens with him, as a married couple share one another’s burdens, as well as joys.  In another of Paul’s letters, his second letter to the Corinthians, the same one in which he wrote of the ‘glory of God in the face of Christ’, Paul uses the wedding image of ‘unveiled faces’.   Because, by God’s grace, our faces are unveiled and we can see clearly the glory of God in Jesus, so we can be ‘transformed into [his] image from one degree of glory to another.’

I say ‘our’ and ‘we’ because God in Christ calls us into the community of his church, to find the healing of our hurts and our hearts together; to be nourished by the sacramental sharing of bread and wine, together; and to work out our common life in him, together.  

That common life has many different aspects: yes, eating and drinking together, worshipping together, caring for one another and for our neighbours, welcoming visitors and pilgrims, and discerning how each of us might contribute to the work of God in this place.   I have written in this week’s cathedral notices about the significance of volunteering for our overall mission and ministry, and I’ve also topped and tailed more than three hundred letters to members of the cathedral community, inviting discernment about financial stewardship.   This has been a component of the Christian life from the very beginnings of the church, as we hear in the Acts of the Apostles when the first disciples distribute their shared material resources to any who have need.    

Each of us are called to be more self-giving, in response to the God who unveils himself to us in the sacrificial generosity of Jesus Christ.  One way of seeking to encapsulate what self-giving means is via the phrase ‘time, talent and treasure’.   The Christian understanding of these three goes something like this:  time is a precious gift.   Each day, once it is passed, can never be regained.   The medieval spiritual classic The Cloud of Unknowing says this: ‘the time that has been given thee; it will be asked of thee how thou has spent it.’  Talents are a precious gift, the particular qualities and abilities we have been blessed with, and are best used to enrich the lives of others.   And as for treasure, the material gifts bestowed on us are once again to be shared, for it is in giving that we receive. 

The emphasis in the cathedral’s annual Season of Generosity is about treasure.  Being dedicated to worship and service does not absolve us from the need to have annual accounts, and to work hard to show our auditors we are a ‘going concern’.   But this financial focus does not mean we are forgetting time and talents: the three are interrelated and each are vital as we seek to be a ‘beacon and safe haven, anchored in the Jesus Christ who is gentle and humble, has left us the proof of his deeds, and shown us the great marvels of the generosity of God. 

I began by speaking of the many kinds of gathering we have seen in the Cathedral in recent days, with endings, beginnings and thanksgiving.  But in the midst of it all, by God’s grace, we are being taught wisdom and discernment; to know when to celebrate and when to be sad, to see clearly both the gifts, and challenges, in every phase and day of our lives; to be wise in the use of our time, talents and treasure.  And above all to know that in Christ we see the unveiled face of God, who invites us to find rest and peace in following and worshipping Him.  AMEN