Thought for the Week

27 July 2008 – Tenth Sunday after Trinity

Collect:	Let your merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the prayers of your humble servants; and, that they may obtain their petitions, make them to ask such things as shall please You; 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:	1 Kings 3, 5 – 12
	Psalm 119, 129 – 136
	Romans 8, 26 – 39
	Matthew 13, 31 – 33 & 44 - 52

In a few places in the New Testament, we are given little glimpses of how the Church was in its very earliest days. At the end of today’s Gospel reading we get a tantalisingly brief insight into the early Church.

In about 50 AD, the Apostolic Council took place in Jerusalem; it is sometimes called the Jerusalem Council. Until then, the Church had occasionally tolerated Gentiles becoming Christians, but it was the exception, not the rule. At the Apostolic Conference, Saint Paul’s ministry to the Gentiles was affirmed, and only just in time, as the end of the State of Judah, and of Jerusalem was near. Without the Apostolic Council, Christianity might well have perished with the Temple at Jerusalem. In 70 AD, the Roman Emperor, Vespasian, finally lost patience with the rebellious people of Judah, destroyed Jerusalem, and the Temple, and reduced the Jewish people to slavery and abject poverty. It was the end of sacrifice, and of Temple worship, and the nation and state of the Jews ceased to exist. From now on, they and their religion only survived in exile.

It is quite clear that Saint Matthew was a Jew. He writes from a Jewish perspective, and includes many little details that would be instantly recognisable to a Jew, but meaningless to a Gentile. Most scholars understand Matthew 22, 7 (in which a furious King sends his troops to destroy and burn a town) as a reference to the events of 70AD. We therefore assume that Matthew was writing between about 75 and 100 AD. Perhaps it was the destruction of Jerusalem, and the scattering of the surviving Apostles that spurred Matthew to write his Gospel. We must assume that he was not the Apostle Matthew. He gives very little personal detail about Jesus. Surely an Apostle would have shaped the Gospel to match his own experience of the life of Jesus, but Matthew follows the narrative of Saint Mark almost completely.

Instead, Matthew describes himself as a scribe, a Christian equivalent of the Rabbis of Judaism. Perhaps he had even been a Rabbi before he became a Christian. He seems very much at home in New testament Greek, so perhaps he was based in one of the Jewish Communities outside Judah, where Greek was the main language.

Christianity owes so much to Judaism, and to the life and worship of the Temple, and it should come as no surprise that the early Christian leaders based themselves on the Rabbis. Equally, even today, our worship is strikingly like the worship of the Temple. Take out animal Sacrifice, and put in Jesus and the Eucharist, and there you have it! Even the tunes that Anglicans use for the psalms at morning and evening prayer derive from Gregorian chant, which in turn is based on the music of the Temple. In fact, but for no mention of Jesus, a service in a Synagogue today is almost exactly like Morning or Evening Prayer.

Now there are three aspects of the life and worship of the Temple that our readings today call to mind. In the first place “Wisdom”. The concept of Wisdom was always there in Jewish thinking, but she was overshadowed by two other strands of Jewish theology, Priests and Prophets. At the exile in 587 BC, Wisdom came into her own. Wisdom is essentially a “bottom up” philosophy, not a “top down” one. Wisdom does not have to be taught by a specialist, she is there in creation, ordained by God, ready and waiting to be discovered. She approaches God from the human point of view, dealing with human problems such as the disciplining of children, and the need for diligence and hard work.

The Rabbis became the teachers and guardians of the faith of Israel after the first destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians in 587 BC. For them, Wisdom was central. Without Prophet or Priest, it was Wisdom that validated their teaching, and it was from the body of Wisdom literature that they drew their inspiration. Early Christian teachers, like Matthew, took that concept of Wisdom, and added the tiny Seed of Jesus, the Pearl of Great Price, the Leaven in the dough, and out of the rich soil of Wisdom grew the great mustard tree of Christianity, the net in which all God’s children are caught up to heaven.

The wisdom of Solomon became legendary, and there is even a deutero-canonical book (i.e. later than the Old Testament and written in Greek, not Hebrew) called just that: “The Wisdom of Solomon”. In our Old Testament Reading today, Wisdom is portrayed as the basis of both Solomon’s reign, and of the United Kingdom of Israel. The Books of Kings, as we have them today, were edited by the Deuteronomists during the early part of the Exile, and bear the stamp of their hand throughout. For them, the only thing that mattered was being faithful to Jahweh. By modern standards, Solomon was a good, effective and enlightened King, under whose reign Israel enjoyed one of her very few periods of power, peace and prosperity. The Deuteronomist gives a grudging nod to Solomon’s Kingly skills, but is much more concerned that he allowed the religion of the people of the land to flourish. Baals and Ashteroth thrived alongside the pure worship of Jahweh. Solomon introduced foreign influences both through his many foreign wives, and through foreign craftsmen building the Temple, the major works project of his time. He is somewhat redeemed by institutionalising Wisdom, and making her a part of the way of being a Jewish King in his father David’s line.

Then there are the two closely related concepts of beauty and holiness. They are related because in the Jewish way of thinking, there is both the Beauty of Holiness, and the Holiness of Beauty. The Temple at Jerusalem was a place of both supreme holiness, for the glory of God dwelt there, and also supreme Beauty, because the building itself was to be a hymn of praise in stone to Jahweh.

It is natural that the place on earth where dwells Jahweh’s glory should be the most beautiful place that man can contrive. Solomon knew that when he built his Temple, to be a dwelling place (in Hebrew, “Shekinah”) for Jahweh, and, despite the misgivings of the Deuteronomists some 500 years later, he took pains to import both the best materials and the best craftsmen from around the world. Is not Jahweh King of all the earth? Are not all of us made in his image?

Each of us who is caught up in the Holiness of Beauty, and standing admiring the flowers is reminded again that we stand before God in Heaven, and our hearts are moved into prayer and praise by the breath-taking beauty. We become again Shekinahs for God to dwell in.

Of course Solomon was also famous for his wealth, and like many absolute rulers, he was not averse to demonstrating his wealth in his clothes and jewellery. Yet Jesus tells us that even Solomon in all his glory was not as beautiful as a wild flower. Flowers, however beautiful they are now, will of course fade, and they are a reminder to us of our own mortality – we too, like them will one day fade and die. The important thing is that the Shekinah, the in-dwelling of God, is immortal. But the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem reminds us that man-made structures are never more than temporary, and their significance is never more than provisional. It is only God and his Kingdom of Heaven that are eternal and immortal. May the Holiness of Beauty enable you to enter into the Beauty of Holiness now and always. Amen.

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

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