Preaching at St Mary’s Priory Church this evening, Fr Tom Bates reflected on the days readings and today’s collect. He reminded us that God wants us in our brokenness.
Full Text:
Our collect today implores the Father that we may ‘so pass through things temporal that we finally lose not the things eternal.’ In other words, it is asking that we may journey through this life without losing sight of where we are headed, and all our readings today have reflected upon this. This morning we heard the parable of the Good Samaritan featuring a man whose journey through this life (from Jerusalem to Jericho to be precise) was considerably impeded by being beaten up and robbed. His journey was further impeded by assorted religious types who were more concerned with ritual cleanliness than they were with the wellbeing of their neighbour lying in the ditch. It is an outsider of a perceived schismatic and heretic sect who has actually grasped what God’s message is about on a basic human level, and who helps the man.
In our reading from St Mark this evening we hear some more examples of the things the scribes and Pharisees do to place temporal obstructions in the way of God’s people: To bury them under legislation rather than raise them from the dust and point them towards heaven. We find the true image of God, the one which he put into human beings in creation, truly displayed in Jesus, and sadly lacking in the Pharisees. In the passage it is noted that the Pharisees were more concerned about rules concerning pots and pans and kettles than they were about obeying God’s law to love God and to love one another, and I will come back to the image of pottery in a minute.
In a similar vein Jesus addresses the subject of food being clean or unclean.
In the creation narrative in Genesis we hear of the choice of Adam and Eve which leads to the fall. ‘This is what you may eat’, ‘this is what you may not eat’, they are told. The food itself is not evil, but the decision is in their hearts: to choose God’s way or reject it. Ultimately it is their hearts not the apple which betrays them, betraying the nature for goodness for which God has made them.
Eating, not eating, what goes into our bodies and what comes out of them is all too much for the disciples and Jesus has to explain this to them when they get home. His point is simple: what one consumes does not lead to evil actions. The ability to choose good or evil, and the ability to do good or evil are in the heart. Ritually clean food and ritually clean pots and pans are secondary to the hygiene of the heart. Remember Jesus teaching: ‘blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God’.
We are very blessed. God has come to us in the love and compassion he created us to reflect in the first place in the person of Jesus: He is the new creation and the very image of our hope that we must keep before our eyes as we journey through this temporal world in the hope of his promised life to come. In the ancient hymn Ubi caritas we hear that in the heart where love is abiding God is in that heart. Jesus tells us that if we hear his voice God will come in and dwell with us. Therefore we have before us the same decision as Adam and Eve, the free will decision to choose God and enthrone God in our hearts. If God, who is the all and only good, dwells in our hearts there will be no room for the evil intentions Jesus speaks about to emerge. No room for that which is unclean. No room for fornication, theft, murder, adultery , avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander, pride or folly. Only room for the light of Christ that we pray may shine before us from our hearts that others will see and will give glory to our Father in heaven.
We are made in God’s image, reflecting his love, his compassion and his goodness, like the good Samaritan in the parable. God doesn’t ask us to be concerned with the 600 plus rules that fascinate the scribes and Pharisees about clean vessels and all manner of other things. God asks us to have a pure heart that it may be our compass through things temporal and follow Christ to things eternal.
However, we all fall down. As Paul points out in 2 Corinthians we have this treasure in earthenware jars. We are fragile and can easily break spilling our treasure on the floor just as our first ancestors did. In essence, it is easy to follow the check lists of the Pharisees. You have either done a thing or you haven’t. But life, this temporal world the collect refers to, is versatile and varied in what it throws at us, and to view our relationship with God as a series of tick boxes does not equip us to meet the challenge neither is it the key to developing any kind of relationship. It is easy to tick boxes, less easy to conform ones heart to Christ in love. One can spend a whole life ticking boxes without coming close to being Jesus Christ to others. That is what Jesus is telling his followers in this tirade against the Pharisees. An incarnate faith which offers transformation from the deepest and most precious part of our being, guiding all our outward actions is what is required of us: The treasure God keeps in us will be that which bears fruit in us, and goes forth from us bringing blessings to those we meet.
Our own brokenness can be intimidating. We recognise our own inadequacy and sinfulness as vessels unworthy of God. Coming back to the imagery of pots and pans, in Japan they have a custom concerning pots and ceramics. (See picture above of Fr Tom holding the bowl). It is a bowl which has been broken and mended. However it hasn’t been mended to hide or disguise the fact that it has been broken or to make it look ‘good as new’. It’s brokenness is deemed to be a beautiful thing, a part of it’s unique character, a part of its story, and it has been repaired with gold to bind it together using a technique called Kintsugi. When we break something it is very easy for us to think it is useless and to be discarded. Yet God meets us in our brokenness and his grace and love are like the gold which transforms that brokenness into something both beautiful and useful to his purpose. Our fragility, our temporality, our fallenness in no way impedes God’s desire for us. Like the bowl the Lord sees the glint of the gold in its brokenness, a glimpse of the eternal in the fragile clay, and has made all things new in the most beautiful way possible. Through the incarnation of his Son in this temporal world, that through his human brokenness on the cross we may experience with him the eternity of his resurrection.
O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that with you as our ruler and guide we may so pass through things temporal that we finally lose not the things eternal…Amen.
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