Thought for the Week

13 July 2008 – Eighth Sunday after Trinity

Collect:	Almighty Lord and everlasting God, we beseech You to direct, sanctify and govern both our hearts and bodies in the ways of your laws and the works of your commandments that through your most mighty protection, both here and ever, we may be preserved in body and soul; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, Who is alive and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God now and for ever. Amen.
Readings:	Isaiah 55, 10 – 13
	Psalm 65, 9 – 14
	Romans 8, 1 – 11
	Matthew 13, 1 – 9 & 18 - 23

It is not easy at first to see the common thread that links our readings today. Everybody knows the parable of the sower, and it is the familiar stuff of Bible Sunday. Most people will know the modern hymn based on the reading from Romans, with the powerful refrain “No condemnation” running through it. Most people will also know the modern hymn based on the reading from Ezekiel, with all the trees clapping their hands. Even the Psalm is familiar from Harvest Festivals. But how do we put them all together to serve one common theme?

The answer lies partly in the Epistle, with Paul distinguishing between flesh and spirit. Before we can explore what Paul means, we need briefly to touch on what he doesn’t mean!

As Christians, we believe in death and resurrection, and not the immortality of the Soul. Saint Paul makes this quite clear, when he talks about the last things. The early Church had to fight very hard against those who claimed that Jesus never really died on the cross, but only seemed to die. They are called “docetists” from the Greek verb, “dokeo”, to seem. The docetists went a lot further – they denied the Incarnation. They said that Jesus was pure Spirit, and that He could never have become flesh, as all matter is inherently sinful, and God could never be part of sin.

In the prologue to his Gospel, Saint John affirms that the Word becoming Flesh is the basis of the whole of the Christian Faith. With the Docetists, Jews, Muslims, Cathars, Jehovah’s’ Witnesses, and many others, we Christians agree that Jesus was a good man, a wonderful teacher, a healer and a miracle worker, but unlike them, we also affirm that He is the Son of God.

It is not clear when the fight against the Docetists began; perhaps the beginning of John’s Gospel was part of that fight. Another early Christian to fight Docetism was Saint Ignatius of Antioch. In a letter to the Smyrneans (Smyrna is in modern day Turkey), writing in about 110, he stresses that Jesus really did suffer on the Cross, and not just seem to do so. We owe Saint Ignatius much – he began the “Keep Sunday Special” campaign! He was the first to say that Christians ought to keep Sunday as their Holy Day, and not Saturday, like the Jews. He wasn’t doing that just to be awkward, but because for him, the resurrection was the foundation of the Christian faith, and all the Gospels agree that it took place on the First Day of the week, Sunday. For Ignatius, and indeed for all of us, the resurrection took place at a particular time and place. It is a real event in history, and it should have a real place as the Holy Day of every week.

If, like Ignatius, we want to take the resurrection seriously, then we have to take the cross seriously. If Jesus did not just “seem” to die on the cross, if He really did die on the cross, then we too must expect to die – not for us the ghost escaping from the machine. For us instead, a sharing in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus, and a sharing in his eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven for evermore.

The docetists believed that there was a “divine spark” dwelling in the body of every living being. For them, God is pure spirit, and material objects are just things, but we humans are somewhere in between, with animals slightly lower down the scale still.

Christians believe that people are made in the image of God, and that God is present in every part of his creation. We cannot therefore say this part of me is divine, and that part of me is not. Our souls and bodies, our minds and feelings, our personality and character all make up the unique being that each of us is.

One of the things that has made this more difficult to understand is demonstrated in today’s Epistle. It looks as if Saint Paul is subscribing to the Docetist idea that people are spirits trapped in flesh. Nothing could be further from the truth. Paul understands the “Spirit” part of us to be the risen part, which is already in heaven with Jesus, and the “Flesh” part to be our unsaved state, tied to this sinful world. The “Flesh” is those parts of our lives that we have not let Jesus redeem, or at least not yet. Spirit is about life, peace and joy, while flesh is about selfishness, sin and death.

Now, if we bear that in mind when we read the other readings for today, perhaps it all becomes a bit clearer. In Isaiah’s lovely poem, the Word of God (shades of the prologue of John’s Gospel again), is compared to the cycle of rain. What a good job we are having this reading this year and not last year! We see the rain come down from heaven, water the land, give the plants life, and then wash the land clean. Then we see it, having done its job, evaporate, and return to heaven again, until it rains next time. The word of God equally goes out from heaven, and the curse of Adam and Eve for eating the forbidden fruit is reversed. At God’s initiative, not ours, the land once more yields its fruit properly, and thorns become cypresses, and briers become myrtles. No longer do God’s children have to win their bread by the sweat of their brow; they are once again in a right relationship with creation because God Himself has restored them to a right relationship with Him.

In our Gospel today, we see the same concept. It is God who is Himself the Sower. He takes the initiative. All we have to do is to respond. “He who has ears, let him hear!”. Most scholars agree that in their original form, each parable conveyed just one idea. Jesus told a story, and then let people react to it. Note that the “great crowds” are told the story, on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.

Unfortunately, our Gospel reading today leaves out verses 10 – 17, in which is made the important point that Jesus only gives the explanation to the disciples privately, later, possibly much later – perhaps, as many scholars think, during the life of the Early Church even.

The timing of it is not important. What matters is that each of us should be fruitful ground in which the word of God can grow and flourish. And to do that, we need, with Paul, to set our hearts and minds on things that are above, or, if you like, the Kingdom of Heaven, and not on the things of this earthly life. Then indeed shall come the day of the Lord, when the trees clap their hands in joy, and mountains and hills burst into song, and proclaim the greatness of the Lord.

But we are not there yet! We have to respond to the love of God again and again, in ways big and small. We have to love God, and love our neighbours, we have to live for love, justice, joy and peace, and do away with sin and selfishness. Amen.

Father Charles Howard: Anglican Chaplaincy of Midi-Pyrénées & Aude

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