Lenten Meditation - Fasting (2)

 ‘When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting-place, but it finds none. Then it says, “I will return to my house from which I came.” When it comes, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first."

Amongst the sayings of Jesus , this one has always intrigued me - in part because it can be understood in so many ways. [Like all of Jesus' stories it is Universal, and thus meaning is continually opening up in it. We must beware of the Closure that says "this means . . .". Rather as we are open to the Spirit, it is perhaps better to say "God seems to be saying This to me through this story at present . . ."]

Amongst the sayings of the Wise there is one which seems apposite to this subject of fasting and especially, if you have been reading this series, my avoidance of the subject of Prayer. In the Philokalia we read that to fast with out praying is the work of the devil. In part this is because it is to see the Disciplines as Ends in themselves. It is to substitute our Spiritual Fortitude for the very Life of God. So we fastidiously Clean out our house by fasting - we ward off our sins by almsgiving, we deal with our Sloth by rigorous studies, we deal with pride by Finding some Lowly service, but we do not Pray. So there is nothing to replace what we have cleaned out, which leaves plenty of space for other spirits.

We are so determined to make ourselves better, to make ourselves Good - that we reject the Life of the Healer, the One who is Good. We clear out the house so it is fit for Our idea of the Perfect guest - but we do not come to prayer. To allow Him to reside there and now all we have is the Pride of our spiritual accomplishment, which is the Worst kind, for it most readily counterfeits Life in our understanding (although in reality there is No point of correspondence)

But of course, Our idea of the Perfect guest is of course Ourselves and of course the presence of Our Spiritual accomplishments is far more amenable to us than is the presence of the living God - indeed we all too readily confuse the two - we need to ask ourselves over and over - What do we Really want? Do we Really want Him? Will we Empty ourSelves to receive Him?

The Carmelite, Ruth Burrows in her book, 'to believe in Jesus' - puts this in terms of a fast.

"Faith is a fast", she says, "it is a refusal to put anything in the place of God, and an acceptance of the consequent sense of deprivation. Faith refuses to seek sensible assurances our nature craves for, and insists on looking beyond, reaching out to Him who cannot be savoured in this life. For the one who had given his heart to the Lord there is a perennial fast whilst this life lasts"

Lenten Disciplines - Fasting (1)

I began by suggesting that we might think that Almsgiving was the easiest of Lent disciplines - after all one need merely set up a standing order to a charity and that, we think, is that. I went on to suggest that Almsgiving if pursued in the spirit in which it is intended is actually the hardest, such is the grip that money has on us

On the other hand - we might suppose that fasting is the hardest of the three chief disciplines. Of all three, it most smacks of asceticism - a much maligned word in a culture that thinks that lack of Anything we desire as soon as we have the thought is Gross Deprivation!

Yet, at the heart of all these disciplines is the stripping away to discern Reality. Through Self denial, we realise we have been living a Lie, we have been deceiving ourselves. All that is stripped away is revealed as a cloak under which we have hidden - the false security of Money, the Busyness which cannot allow time for Prayer, and we come to see how we have abused the Goodness of Food, and in so doing missed its real Gift.

When we Fast we learn again the significance of food. And it is a significance we have forgotten and lost sight of, a Loss as significant as the Loss of Life we suffered when our First Parent Sinned, for it is inextricably linked to it. We fail to understand what we are involved in when we eat, and Most especially as we always should - (for 'it is not good that Man should be alone') - when we eat together.

One of the first effects of the fall was a distorted relationship with food - 'by the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread' - and we have reached a time in history where that distortion has reached what one can only call blasphemous proportions. We live in an age when many millions are dying from overeating and millions more from inadequate nutrition. This is played out before us through the media, yet nothing seems to change. That which was Good has become a Snare.

In part this is revealed in our practice of fasting or, better, lack of practise. In an age when so many of us have so much food, fasting has died a death. Yet in previous times when food was more scarce and thus more precious, such self denial was a commonplace. We have as it were become addicted to food and our relationship to it more and more unhealthy. Many homes are full of cookbooks that are never read, TV shows draw in millions who rarely prepare a fresh meal to watch the experts, perhaps whilst also munching through a bag of potato crisps. Which draws attention to the paradox that we have also become increasingly inattentive to food. We Watch it, look at it, read about it - but do not attend to it - we are not Present to the Gift. We talk of Grazing - we Eat on the move - we have business lunches. Family mealtimes are more and more a thing of the past [One sad definition of a family I read was 'a small group of people who share a common refrigerator and microwave].

And this last example brings me to my point - that Food is a Creative Vehicle of Reality - it has the Deep potential of Creating Life, if we understand what it is - God's Life giving Gift. And the Life is Shared. In the Fall we lose our relationship to Everything in losing our relationship with God - with Food and each other. (It is noticeable that the first murder denotes separation over matters of Food). We speak of Companionship as a deep level of Friendship - the word literally means 'With Bread' - Friendship - Relationship is Food oriented. And so in lent we strip away all the Lies and re-appropriate Food - by  NOT eating for a time.

Imagine you have not eaten for some time - you are hungry - you have been praying (Fasting should Always be accompanied by prayer). Now you come to sit and eat. Take time to contemplate what is before you - God has Provided - Give thanks (Saying Grace has also disappeared from our lives as we have lost touch with Food). In a very real sense, the food is an expression of the presence of God - He has provided it, without Him you have no food.

Now imagine further - two people sat together sharing a meal - but a third is present, for God has provided. Something knew comes into being in the Deep web of reality if we will but see it. Eating and Drinking is a Sacramental Act. We remember one who came 'eating and drinking' - the Lord of Life is Present. In this simple act of sharing a meal Companionship is happening - in God's hospitable act of providing food - you are drawn closer together.

Of course, as Christians we should never have forgotten this for central to our Faith is The Meal. God offering himself to us in Bread and Wine - the Life that enlivens Everything. In the early days of the church, the feast of the Eucharist was encompassed by a shared meal, just as the Institution of the Lord's Supper takes place in the context of a meal. Everything touched by this becomes Holy.

If we are alert to what we are doing - to the Gift, then Every shared meal becomes something Gloriously Other. As we say at the Eucharist 'The Lord is Here - his Spirit is with us!'. 

Might we not also say around the dinner table??

If we fast we begin once more to encounter God, 

to strip away the excess and thus see everything in its true light - including Food.

[For more Very wonderful thoughts on Food, and Sacrament, and Life,

I recommend the blog of a dear friend which you can find here.]

Life through the Disciplines

Here at St John's we are exploring the theme of Christian Practices, through Lent. Practices I have come to define as The Life of God (as with many of the things I teach and talk about, what it is only becomes clear to me long after I've started the preparation!).

Practices such as Blessing, Sabbath, Generosity, Hospitality, Truthfulness, Forgiveness - Ways of being that embody what God in the Risen Christ is doing in the world. Of course we tend rather to think about the Disciplines of the Christian life in Lent - Fasting, Prayer and Almsgiving being the three chief ones, taking our lead from the Ash Wednesday Gospel reading, in Matthew chapter 6. Lent is a time for disciplined self examination, that opening up of the Heart of the matter as we seek to follow Christ more closely, and the disciplines are helpful in that regard. But how do they relate to the Practice of the life of God? To many in this age they seem quite antithetical - they seem negative, the path of Self denial - how can they bring forth Life. Shouldn't we just get on with Living the life of God?

But that is precisely it, for as soon as we try to 'Live the Life of God' we realise that we cannot. We fall flat on our faces. It is as if we have seen a beautiful painting, or eaten a Cordon Bleu meal, or watched a sportsman perform as the height of his game and said, I'm going to do that!! And go buy some paints or food, or go out on the Sports field and, either metaphorically or literally, fall flat on our faces. For the truth is that the artist or the chef or the sportsman has been training for years and years and we have not. And of course we know this so if we really want to master these things we set about the discipline of doing it and getting it wrong and so learning and repeating over and over again, til it comes right

Yet somehow we think that this matter of Living the Christian Life, the Life of God should be easy - until we try to do it. And then we get discouraged and give up. Or we hear from others on the way that it is hard and so don't even bother to try. Forgiveness is a good case in point here. We see it and we say "I could never do that!" Except the truth is you could, we all can - we are made to, it is part of our human nature made as we are in the Image of God.

this is where the disciplines come in. Before Jesus steps a foot into the ministry of public arena, he goes through a fierce discipline and testing - before the Father will let him loose on the world, the Spirit drives him into the wilderness, to learn through the discipline of fasting.

So what is the role of the disciplines with regard to the life of God? Isn't it enough to keep on trying and failing until we get better? Well the Wisdom of the ages tells us that that generally isn't the way, that if Christ had to fast that he might Love the world as his Father does, then so do we. As Dallas Willard  points out, we can't expect to imitate the life of Jesus if we ignore the dimension of disciplining ourselves.

Let us imagine for a moment that learning to Live the Life of God is a little like learning to drive a car. When I learnt, my first teacher was my dad. It wasn't a great experience. Of course like most drivers he had loads of bad habits and so he passed them on. It was only when I sat with a qualified instructor for some focused tuition, that these became apparent. The disciplines are like those sessions with the Expert. They are times when the Only thing in focus is Living the Life. By fasting, or prayer, or almsgiving, we strip away anything that is Not to do with God and His Life, and we are subjected to scrutiny. Through which we learn something of what is getting in the way, blocking this Life of God.

 (Another helpful discipline in this regard is having a good Spiritual Director - someone who is well versed in the Life of God and its ways and who can help us scrutinise the latest blockage on our path. this is never easy but, in our age subjecting our lives to the Scrutiny of another is perhaps even ore difficult and thus all the more necessary!)

The Disciplines uncover the heart and reveal what is hidden there - they reveal what is getting in the way of the Life of God as we seek to grow in faith and holiness. The Disciplines are like the tilling of the ground each season that it might bring forth more fruit. If the practices are the flourishing garden of the Life of God, the disciplines are the pruning shears and weeders that every gardener knows are Necessary.

Each of these three disciplines has an important role to play and so through the next three weeks we shall explore each one further. Beginning tomorrow with the discipline of giving alms.

Sermon for Lent 1 - Sunday February 26th

Sermon for First Sunday in Lent 2012

Genesis 9:8-17

Psalm 25

1 Peter 3:13-22

Matthew 4:1-11

Through Lent as the Body of Christ

“Man does not live by bread alone,

 but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”

As I sincerely hope you’ve noticed, we have re-introduced the Psalm into our morning worship. [Funnily enough, given what I’m about to say, I began by typing out ‘I have re-introduced the Psalm . . .’ J] The Psalms have been the root prayers of the people of God down through three thousand years. They are prayers that are well tested as sources of comfort and hope, as well as giving us space to vent our spleen before God should we need to do so. And there is only one safe place to vent our spleen!

On the whole, those of us who like myself grew up within the Anglican church and perhaps had little by the way of Private piety would have come across the Psalms in public worship and may well have thought that that was where they belonged – but in truth the Psalms have been used every bit as much in private devotion over the centuries, and indeed they generally read best in that regard. However, there is a small group of Psalms written precisely to be said together. You may have noticed them in your Bible, psalms 120-134 – they are called ‘The Psalms of Ascent’. They were the sequence of Psalms traditionally said in sequence as the Jewish people went on Pilgrimage up to the Temple in Jerusalem on Mount Zion.

I wonder if we have the imaginative capacity to find ourselves in the scene – a group of people – going up together on this journey, three times a year, chanting these old songs of faith. A Powerful communal practise.

I want now while we hold that picture to imagine something else. Last Sunday evening, the last before Lent in many many churches something happened which I guess none of us here have experienced in our church life. As part of the liturgy everyone in church went to every other person and asks them for forgiveness for any wrong they have done them. Why do these Christians do this? Well we might say, ‘because it is good to forgive and be forgiven’ and that is very true – yet it is not something which we have practiced in our tradition, perhaps ever. Actually these Christians do this as preparation for Lent. They are Christians of the Orthodox or Eastern tradition of the church, comprising at least 1/3 of all the Christian in the world today.

I will return to the Orthodox Lent in a little while, but for now just sit for a moment or two with those two images – the community of believers going up to the Temple and chanting the Psalms and The Orthodox believers creating absolute mayhem I guess as they all make the effort to seek out everyone else to seek forgiveness. What a way to go to church, what a way to start Lent.

What both epitomize, is a Truth that many many Christians in the Western tradition have lost – that the Life of faith is Primarily something we do together. Last week when I described the idea of Covenant I took us back to one of the older covenants – where God in Covenant Love takes hold of the people of Israel in slavery in Egypt, the whole people – All of them. Our reading from Genesis speaks also of God’s covenant, this time with the whole earth “When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” Taking hold of Israel is awe inspiring, but the rainbow was given as a sign that God in Covenant Love took hold of All Creation. (btw I know that some folk would like me perhaps at some stage to preach on Creation and matters to do with the Environment and I shall do so – but for now I want to build some theological foundations as most sermonizing o these topics has little to do with the faith as revealed thru the prophets, Scriptures and Apostles). God takes hold of all creation.

            The writer to the Colossians says of Christ, in Him all things hold together  - people pilgrimaging together chanting Psalms – people going to everyone else to seek forgiveness – all things holding TOGETHER in Christ. All of these are ringing Rebukes not to the rampant individualism of the world, but of the rampant individualism of faith in the Western Church – For The Church, the faithful people of God are called to reveal AMONGST themselves, the truth of the penultimate Psalm of Ascents, just Before they reach the Temple , How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in Unity.

It is the Common life of the people of God which is given as a light to the nations-  YOU says Jesus are the Light of the world. And here we hit a difficulty for us, for in the English language, we cannot tell the difference between you and you, that’s not You and You, but you (singular) and you (Plural). Christ addresses his Disciples YOU are the light of the world. And it is re-inforced in other ways – Some of you May have flinched a little when I deliberately used non-inclusive language in the reading from the gospel. I very much understand what is at stake here, but unfortunately we can miss something important – there is a Very Significant difference between “Man does not live by bread alone” and “One does not live by bread alone” The former moves us towards a hearing that is corporate – the latter moves us Strongly towards a hearing that is individual. God spoke these words through Moses Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. ³He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. God Leading his people 40 years in the wilderness to teach them Faith. He took Everything away – Quite literally, apart from the clothes on their back and the shoes on their feet – he taught them Faith. This was a lesson of faith, for the People, not individuals. The Life of faith is Primarily something we do together

And Now in Lent, the Lesson is the same – Learning faith is the point of Lent for the people of God as it was for Jesus in the desert. God takes his people into the wilderness for forty years, he takes Us into Lent for 40 days each year. Only One does he take alone – Matthew tells us Jesus was Led by the Spirit into the wilderness to test him, to tempt him. Henri Nouwen puts it well when he says that Jesus is tempted to be relevant, spectacular and powerful “Feed yourself!!” ‘feed the world, everyone will believe in you then – yet he feeds them and as John records they started to desert him – Do something Spectacular!! – Throw yourself down from the temple. They’ll all believe in you then – but he did not even throw himself down from the Cross – Or tempting him with Power - Worship me and I will give you all the power you need.

We live in an age when most of the western church has either disappeared or succumbed to the devils blandishments – it chases after relevance – We Must be relevant to people’s lives and so to some it seems we are like the leader of the French revolution sat at the sidewalk café as the mob rushes by who cries – there are my people! I must follow them!! Or we must be spectacular – building mega churches, having the best technological tools, - Or we must be powerful – well by and large that one has expired J but it supposedly served the church well for over a thousand years and thus remains a deadly addiction should any opportunity arise – secretly we long for the church to be powerful again and seek ways to make it look so.

But Jesus rebukes The Satan with regard to these temptations, and what strikes me is this – he does not suggest another way – he never says, I’m not going to do it that way, I’m going to do it this – because the way of Jesus is simply Naked faith in God – this is what the Spirit leads him into the wilderness to learn as it had led the people of Israel into the desert for 40 years. So he fasts that he Might Learn it really Is True – man does not live by bread alone. Jesus discovers this truth in the Wilderness – Truth Laid bare.

Even the Son of God must learn FAITH and it takes him 40 days – it took Israel 40 years and even then they forgot.40 days for Jesus, 40 years for Israel. How easily we say, “I have faith”. Yet can I go without food for even a day? Can I sell even a tenth of my possessions and give to the poor? Can I lose a tenth of my dignity and associate with the outcasts of society and be known as their friends? Can I turn from the demands of the world – in trust that the world will continue to turn, and spend one brief hour a day in prayer? Oh how many many books are printed now to tell us how to get along on ten minutes a day because we are SO busy. But we are busy because we have little faith.

40 days – 40 days of Lent. And we look at Lent and wonder how it can help and often we do little about it  - I mean we are very well accustomed to perhaps having shared study, but that is pretty much it – we may as Individuals come up with bright ideas. How can I sustain something for 40 days, and what is more as Jesus tells us to, without looking miserable about it? Yet The Church into which we are all baptized has told us what to do in Lent – Pray, Fast and Give Alms – common practices, meant to be done together.

I said I was going to come back to the Orthodox Church. We left them last Sunday evening – gathered together for the Vespers of Forgiveness – going round forgiving and asking for forgiveness from everyone else. Imagine that as a Start to Lent. I have said a little in the week about a Joyful Lent and Lent in the orthodox church is Very joyful – BUT we might look at it and wonder – How can they be joyful when they do THAT!! Here for example is the prayer book they use in Lent – All 700 pages as the services for Every Day are set out (without all the Psalms by the way which they recite in their entirety twice a week :) ) – and then there is the fasting – this begins two weeks before Lent with a prohibition on any meat – then the Sunday before all dairy products are ruled out. In the first week – ONLY TWO MEALS, one on Wednesday and one on Friday – after that it is eased and there so you can have one uncooked meal a day J And I could go on (by the way as is the rule with all Fasting  - NEVER ON A SUNDAY!! Sunday is the day of New Creation, not the old :) ) Well we might ask, how can this be Joyful????

And the answer – because they are all in it together – praying regularly together, encouraging one another each day – they go about it Cheerfully – which is a Good Biblical Word :) Lent is Hard, if not impossible Alone – but Together it can be a journey of Joy

Through Lent as the Body of Christ. This is the title for this sermon. And so may I encourage us to recapture some of that sense of being a community of faith, sharing in faith, growing in faith, together this Lent. You may wish to come to a Lent course – we shall be exploring this theme of Life together through the Practices of faith and I hope that we shall learn far more than I have prepared through sharing our Lenten journey together.

But if you cannot make it, then there is still one thing we could Easily all do together which the Orthodox do. Every week the focus of worship is the Gospel for the coming Sunday. On your news sheet is the Gospel for next week – Let us do this one thing together – each day in preparation for next Sunday, let us read the Gospel – for this is the message of Life, for us all as the Body of Christ here. We go through Lent that we might better know Easter Joy – we go through Lent because All of Life is a preparation for Resurrection Life – and know it in our midst, together.

At the start of Lent

The Western Church traditionally observes the Sunday before Lent by remembering the Transfiguration of Christ, as recorded in Matthew's gospel, chapter 17. There is much Wisdom in this.
As we enter a time where it is all too easy to focus out thoughts on ourselves as we apply ourselves to the disciplines of the season - traditionally fasting, prayer and Almsgiving, and more and more in the modern idiom, taking up some 'Good Work' -  it is easy to lose sight of Jesus and get caught up in all the 'virtuous' things we are doing, being at home with ourselves, rather than allowing Jesus to take us on pilgrimage  through the Wilderness, the only place where God's people learn faith.

There is a sense that the apostles felt this on the Mount of Transfiguration - "it is good for us to be here" - they are all too ready to pitch tent and stay there, but the 'lights' go out and suddenly
"they saw no one except Jesus himself alone."

No bright lights, no voice from Heaven - just Jesus. Lent is a time which asks us "Is He Enough?"

Matthew records that as soon as they come down from the mountain, the disciples find themselves floundering in the thick of the battle

When they came to the crowd, a man came to him, knelt before him, and said, ‘Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly; he often falls into the fire and often into the water. And I brought him to your disciples, but they could not cure him.’ Jesus answered, ‘You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him here to me.’ And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, ‘Why could we not cast it out?’ He said to them, ‘Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there”, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.’

They are perhaps asking, What happened to that Light, the Voice - The Wonder and the Awe of the mountain - why couldn't we have stayed there?? But as Jesus tells them, they have little faith. The plain fact is that the Light, the Voice, The Wonder and the Awe are all present, but veiled in human flesh. He is still Present to them, but they have little faith, they cannot See.

Jesus has his own Mount of Transfiguration experience - his Baptism. There are signs, the Spirit, the heavenly voice. How easy it must have been to ask to pitch tent by this place of blessing. But as Mark puts it The Spirit "drives" Jesus out into the Desert. This Work is Vitally urgent for Him and it is for us too.

As we enter Lent we are called to go with Jesus, to let go of other supports, ease and food, money (as we give alms) - for it is a time of testing. But all we are doing is going with Jesus and in the path of His disciples. Lent mirrors Jesus' 40 days in the Wilderness - we do not go alone. As He was as present amongst the demoniacs and the chaos of his disbelieving disciples, he is present in our Wilderness walk

One of his disciples saw the lights going out, yet spoke faith

 - ironically for he was known as the one who doubted - 

'Let us go also, that we might die with Him'

Whilst we still long to remain comfortable, 

whilst we have yet to learn to See him when humanly speaking the lights have gone out,

we need Lent

Sermon for Sunday 12th February - Epiphany 6 - Ordinary 6

 Sermon for Sunday 12^th February 2010 – Epiphany 6 – Ordinary time 6

2 Kings 5:1-14

1 Cor 9:24-27

Mark 1:40-45

‘Bodily faith’

(LINK TO AUDIO RECORDING)

Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable garland, but we an imperishable one. So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified.

Last week as most if not all of you know I celebrated my 50^th Birthday and enjoyed a wonderful day. As a little self indulgence I wrote a note on Facebook – you can tell it was self indulgence because No-one has responded to it :) In it I imagined that Great cricket commentator of my youth, the great Hampshireman, John Arlott describing the scene at Headingley Cricket ground as I raised my bat to the pavilion in acknowledgment of a half century.

Now you have got to know quite a bit about me these past few months, but one thing you don’t know about is my prowess as a cricketer – you didn’t know?? No? Well in my head  I m a great cricketer :) In my head!! In England there is something known as The Church Times Cricket competition. All the dioceses field teams, and after regional group stages the best teams play at Lords in the final. I played for Bradford Diocese – we were a bit thin on cricketers :) In my first match I’d been watching the test mtch on TV – I batted six – the first delivery  . . . I placed my foot down the track and struck a flawless drive through mid-off for four :) I went on to score 24, nearly all in boundaries before being undone by a slow full toss which took out my middle stump :) Unfortunately the apparent quality of the rest of my innings perseuaded the captain he had a real talent on his hands. I was promoted to open. I now probably hold the Church TImes record for consecutive first ball dismissals :) It was all in my head. In my head I was a Great Cricketer – I still am :) in my head, but not in my body.

We live in a world and culture where we think so much of the body and fear its loss of power. People are consumed by body image – by being slender, or muscular, or athletic – we are warned at every corner about the perils of mistreating our body through unhealthy diet or the like  - and when we express aging and our fears for the future, it is nearly always the body we refer to – I cannot do what I once wanted to – I am afraid of losing my physical ability – we feel very threatened by old people who have lost control of their bodies. YET for all we think of the body, we actually think very little of it in temrs of our identity – we do not think ‘I am my body’ we understand the self in a psychological/emotional/ spiritual sense – like the Greek idea of the Soul a persons essence – but to say ‘I am also my body’ comes as a strange idea – obsessed with the body but denying we are our bodies – AND we think very little if Anything of its place in our faith. We hear these words of St Paul, ; but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified,  and we either fail to comprehend what he is going on about, or, probably after that dismiss him as some strange ascetic. What after all has Faith to do with the body?? As long as he keeps faith he will be ok, surely? How can the body threaten his own salvation??? Surely faith is a matter of thinking the right things?? What has faith got to do with the body. Dismissing St Paul – psychologising him and finding ways to write him off has been popular for a number of years – we always try to dismiss what we don’t understand . . . to our great loss

One of the earliest battles the church had to fight doctrinally was the denial of the Real humanity of Christ – his embodiedness. Indeed the doctrine of the Virgin Birth was not fought for because as we might like to think it was miraculous and therefore divine, rather that it Proved Jesus was Flesh and blood!! Early Christianity grew up in a body denying Greek culture, that is why we speak of the soul although such an idea is hard to find in Scripture, certainly as we think of it. Body denying. Finally the battle was won, but then forgotten and the demon sneaked in through the back door finding the house empty and swept clean – and nowadays it is rare to say the least to hear anything of the VITAL necessity of the body in faith – so we can dismiss Paul

BUT

The Word became Flesh . . . and we have seen his glory

John REFUSES point blank to allow us to disconnect the flesh and blood Jesus of Nazareth with ‘the Christ of faith’ which has implications for us which I haven’t got time to go into now – but for him and for the early church the embodiedness of Christ was Essential.

Listen again

We declare to you what was from the beginning (LOGOS), what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— this life was revealed – they TOUCHED the LIFE

Last week I used the story of Peter and John at the Temple to dramatically illustrate how in the Christendom church we have substituted the Life of God for idols, silver and gold, education, buildings, things which look impressive to the world. But they looked at Peter and John and said – these are uneducated men – they said of Paul – his bodily presence is weak and his speech contemptible – it was said about Christ ‘there was nothing in his appearance that we should desire him’. Paul was physically spent spreading the gospel throughout the gentile world – and there is something in that story of the healing of the lame man that I am sure we may think of no account : Peter said, ‘I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.’ And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong.

Why take him by the hand? Why mention that? Why didn’t Peter just command him to get up?? Surely faith is enough?? And Yes faith is enough – but the Body is the vehicle of faith. If you examine all the accounts of Jesus healing people – what are exceptional are those healings where Jesus does NOT touch, and in Every single case where he does Not touch there is something else at stake – without Exception. His glory is revealed in the body and by His body. His Glory is inseparable from His body for in his humanity, it is The Glory of the First Adam before he chose to hide.

His glory is revealed in the body - A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’ Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. – Jesus Stretched out his hand and touched him – his body the vehicle of Life.

Lepers were cut off – they were cut off because of fear – fear that their disease was infectious – but actually that cutting off from society was a broader manifestation of their condition. Leprosy is a bacterially caused condition which afflicts the sensory nervous system so you cannot feel – the disfigurment of leprosy is brought about in part because if you cannot feel your skin is damaged. We have little inkling of how awful life would be if we could not feel, of how quickly our skin would be damaged and we would be disfigured. In a sense we too have lost touch with our bodies.

Recently I’ve taken to walking barefoot a lot and also doing a little running barefoot. What you rapidly realize is how sensitive the foot is and how shoes numb you to your surroundings. Following the advice of leaders in the field I’ve tried not to avoid sharp gravel, but rather let it re-educate my feet. Remembering things they had forgotten. Encased in shoes feet become weak and lost touch. So similarly enclosed in understanding of faith which doesn’t require the sensitivity of the body or sensitivity to the body we too, you might say have become lepers. Cut off. Having a disembodied faith – not recognizing the VITAL role a body has to play.

Jesus’ glory is revealed in the body and by the body - and that is How God’s glory is to be revealed in us.

We cannot be present to someone without our bodies – we cannot be a vehicle of God’s Life without our bodies – and in the customs of the church we still have a memory of this, but do we realize it is Essential??? – we still ordain through the laying on of hands, but do we realise that we have to in order to be vehicles of God’s power? – we still lay hands on the sick although less than we did because of ( I suggest mistaken ) concerns over vulnerability. Do we realize that this is Essential??? That this is No Mere comfort – it is No mere symbol – Faith is Enacted in and through the body – faith is not ideas, is is Eternal Life and human Life is utterly identified with the body.

Lent is fast approaching. A season of Discipline and there are several in which the body is most clearly involved – most obviously Fasting. Fasting is a discipline which I think has almost fallen into universal disuse throughout the Western Church. Very few books are written on it, none when put in comparison with prayer and other aspects of Christian disciplines. Yet it is The Discipline that most rapidly reconnects our faith to our body. The Christendom church learnt to live on the bread of silver and gold, of education, of buildings – and forgot that it’s true bread was the Power of god present amongst us. The individual likewise has forgotten that man lives not by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God and so as St Paul warns, our stomachs are all too often our gods, in other words our bodies have become dominated by that which should not dominate them. We have been overpowered – Fasting sharply reminds us of that. We find neat theological sounding excuses for not fasting as we do with other commands of God.

Fasting is a gift - It’s like walking barefoot – all of a sudden we become sharply aware of how out of touch with our bodies we have become –Bodies which are Vital to our faith. We begin to reconnect the two

Perhaps in Lent we might revisit this – for the Word became Flesh – and the Word hungered in the desert – and the Word learnt obedience in the body – and Jesus of Nazareth, the Word made flesh, took that body and broke it for the sake of the world.

May we again learn the true power of Life that dares take on Flesh.

Amen