He emptied himself
Theologian and ecumenist Rev. Dr. Alan Falconer preached on Philippians 2.7 for Revd. Andrew Falconer’s first Eucharist. You can read the text below or listen to the recording here.
Let us Pray
Lord,
Teach us to seek you,
and reveal yourself to us when we seek you.
For we cannot seek you unless you first teach us,
nor find you except you reveal yourself to us.
Let us seek you in longing
and long for you in seeking.
Let us find you in love
And love you in finding,
O Jesus Christ our Lord
Amen
< St Ambrose of Milan>
As a teenager I attended the Bible Class in my local church in Edinburgh. The Class was taken by a minister- in-training. Unfortunately, he had no idea how to handle a group of 16 and 17 year olds! In desperation he did what no minister- in- training should ever do- he read out his New Testament lectures to us week by week.
A recipe for disaster? No.
It was brilliant. His New Testament professor was reflecting on a book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran theologian who had been executed by the Nazi authorities because of his involvement in the July Plot to assassinate Hitler. The book Nachfolge translated into English as “The Cost of Discipleship” was a commentary on the Sermon on the Mount. Written during the 1930s, it was an exposition of what it means to follow Jesus Christ in a modern world beset by a dangerous and criminal government .Here was a challenging set of values, values which ran and run counter to the ethos and norms of society .
Our Gospel reading has been central to Christian witness and living over the centuries, particularly since the time when St Augustine of Hippo named these affirmations “ the Sermon on the Mount”. Erasmus, the renaissance scholar , regarded the Sermon on the Mount “as a compendium of Jesus’ teaching” while John Calvin similarly regarded it as a “synopsis of Jesus’ teaching.”
The Sermon states what the Jesus movement-a movement within Judaism- regarded as essential for disciples to know. It is placed right at the beginning of St Matthew’s account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.
And at the beginning of the Sermon , the Beatitudes . In eight memorable statements the themes of the Sermon are presented.. Indeed the rest of the Sermon on the Mount is basically a commentary on and filling out of these eight Beatitudes.
The Beatitudes address the deepest and central aspects of what it means to be human and to live in community. At the outset Jesus asserts that his ministry is about right relations, mercy, poverty, humility, peacemaking ,integrity, the care of the vulnerable,
Thus-
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled”.
Those who heard the Sermon knew all about hunger and thirst .In the life of the People of Israel , it was a common experience. The journeying in the wilderness as they fled from Egypt and in the various periods of exile there was a constant search for food and water. The Israelites knew the effect of being parched where the whole body craves for relief, where the search for water takes over .Then as now ,the water supply was politicised by their enemies and by the Roman occupying forces. The supply was constantly under threat of being cut off. The search for water in these circumstances becomes the sole focus of the individual and the community. Every other aspect of life is suspended. Indeed some scholars suggest that this beatitude might better be translated “Blessed are those who ache from the very depths of their being for righteousness” whose sole focus is on establishing righteousness. Righteousness basically concerns relationships, right relations between individuals and communities.-relationships where each values the other.
The Beatitudes are interdependent. They point to the imperative of the search for justice and peace. This is emphasised in the Psalm we read earlier in our service.
“Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet , righteousness and peace will kiss each other.”
Hebrew poetry takes the form of couplets , where the terms used are inseparable and interconnected. This series of couplets appears throughout the Hebrew scriptures. They are the central terms for the Torah, the basis of life and living for the Hebrew community. They are interdependent.
Jonathon Sachs , the former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, emphasised that Judaism is a code for society , - a code of social values :
Righteousness (Tzedek), justice(mishpat),loving kindness(chesed)and peace(shalom) These are the template for the life of the individual and of the community. The whole of life is to be encompassed by living within these parameters. These reflect the world as God intends.
In the Beatitudes Jesus stands within the tradition of the Torah, and calls the community to embrace these markers for life, conscious that they are conflictual and run counter to the values of society.
The human condition in the time of Jesus, as also now ,was characterized by great contrasts: poverty and wealth, mourning and comfort, gentleness and domination, deprivation of justice and satisfaction, mercy in a merciless , revengeful world , purity or integrity in a milieu thoroughly polluted with lies and fake news, and peace in a time of war and violence. Indeed so important was peace that Jesus creates a new word –“ peacemakers” -.the first time the emphasis was on making peace rather than enjoying peace .This affirms that the Beatitudes need to be lived. Particularly because they address the most essential and basic conditions of what it means to be human. In a sense they are a reminder of the core elements of the Torah. They are a commentary on the template of righteousness, justice ,loving kindness and peace. They treat of human fears and aspirations. They are a counterwitness to a society which is self absorbed, where humanitarian values are swept aside by governments, groups of traffickers , by combatants in civil wars ,or by cynically regarding the death of women and children “as collateral damage”, They are also a counterwitness to an ethos where a person’s wealth is the indicator of human value.
The Beatitudes are to be lived They are to be imprinted on the minds and hearts of the disciples and to give shape to the common life. They are addressed to the community in which the individual takes his or her place. We are called to be the community of the Beatitudes.
In the early 1990s the authorities in Milan decided to extend the Metro underground rail network. They had to take extreme steps to counter pollution in the city. They had attempted by other means to reduce the effects of carbon emissions, but to no avail, and so the only solution open to them was to extend the Metro .As they tunnelled under Milan Cathedral they broke through the rock into a vaulted chamber. They had broken in to a well preserved eight sided bath . surrounded by mosaics. The work on the Metro was suspended. , and has not been resumed at this point.
After careful research it was clear that this chamber was a baptistry. The person to be baptized would stand at the edge of the pool, and after confirming his or her faith, his or her trust in God, would walk through the water, dying and rising to Christ through the springs of the Water of Life. The community on the other side of the bath would then welcome the baptized into the fellowship of the community.
A transformative experience.
The font is eight sided . The number eight was important for the early church. The idea of the eighth day is found throughout the Hebrew scriptures, specifically in the last of the great Feasts – the Feast of Booths or the Feast of Tabernacles (Lev.23:23) There are constant references in the life and rituals of the Hebrew People to the importance of the number eight. According to St Luke Jesus’ circumcision took place on the eighth day after his birth ,while it was on the eighth day that the revelation of God on the Mount of the Transfiguration took place.
What is this eighth day? The early church regarded Sunday as both the first day of the week and the eighth day. It was and is the day of new creation ,of celebrating new beginnings through baptism, marking as it does new life and incorporation into the community. It makes thin the canvas between heaven and earth.
Scholars have detected that part of the baptismal liturgy involved the community reciting the Beatitudes The candidate was baptized and committed to the way of life living and embodying the Beatitudes.
Here in Colwall the font is eight sided. Every baptism is a baptism into the community of the Beatitudes., into a life of being for others.
Baptized into Jesus Christ
He calls us to be that community, the community of the Beatitudes
My New Testament professor characterized the Beatitudes as the different facets of a diamond, a diamond which can only be understood in the light of the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth. St Paul in his letter to the Philippians , as we heard earlier in our service , quotes a hymn which says of Jesus that” he emptied himself” he was the man for others –the man who showed us what it means to be human and humane, no matter the personal cost .He embodies the Beatitudes-a life of service , of building people up, of challenging those who would demean the humanity of others ,a life of showing forth loving service, right relations , peace and justice.
Baptized into Jesus Christ, He calls us to be that community ,the community of the Beatitudes
Rev. Dr. Alan Falconer