Sunday 26 September, Michael and All Angels

When shall we three meet again
in thunder, lightning, or in rain?
When the hurlyburly’s done,
when the battle’s lost and won.
That will be ere the set of sun.
I thought about calling this the ‘Scottish sermon’: after all, it’s said that even speaking the name of the antihero of the play which opens with those lines brings bad fortune. But despite the costumes and the chorus this is a church, not a theatre, and we are not (most of us) luvvies, so: secret black and midnight hags, do your worst!

When Macbeth (for it is he) encounters the Weird Sisters he does so as an all-conquering hero. He has led Duncan’s army to victory over the invading Norwegians and their treacherous Scottish allies. His personal courage and blood-stained military prowess have been sung in glowing terms and his future as a great General and as a great Lord seems assured. Then he is hailed as the future King. The question that generations of theatregoers have puzzled over is the impact that this greeting has on him.

One interpretation is that the witches’ intervention tempts him away from the path of loyal service and sets him on his course as a usurping murderer. Another is that through the device of the three witches Shakespeare has externalized an interior debate that is raging within the troubles Thane of Glamis. Macbeth is an ambitious man who is prepared to kill his King and seize the throne - such are the plots and schemes that haunt his every waking moment. In the three witches these plots and schemes are given quasi-human form and shape. Shakespeare projects Macbeth’s turmoil onto the public stage and enacts it, enabling his audience to follow the inner conversation and to witness the growing hold that Macbeth’s dark desires have over him.

St John the Divine employs a not dissimilar technique in the book of Revelation. The heavenly struggle of Michael against the dragon mirrors exactly the earthly struggle of the Christian martyrs against their accusers that forms the context of the book’s writing. Michael first appears in our Bibles in the book of the prophet Daniel, where he is cast as the figurehead of God’s people in the celestial realms. In Revelation, we read of the victory of Michael and his angels; then we read of the victory of what St John calls ‘our comrades’. Michael wins in heaven; the Christian believers who have been tested even to the point of death win on earth. Their struggle, like Macbeth’s, is projected onto a new stage.

But whereas Shakespeare’s purposes are dramatic, St John’s are theological. He wants his readers to understand that the sufferings they are enduring even as he writes are no small matter. He wants them to understand that their cries are heard in heaven; he wants them to understand that their tribulations are of cosmic significance. When they resist their opponents on earth rebel angels are expelled from heaven. Macbeth’s strife within himself has consequences for all Scotland. The martyrs’ strife within the new Babylon, Rome, has consequences for all creation. But why? Why does the sporadic persecution of a new religious sect threaten to split the heavens asunder?

Jacob dreams of a ladder reaching from heaven to earth upon which the angels of God are ascending and descending. It’s a dream, perhaps as much the work of the subconscious as are the longings which tempt Macbeth. But Jacob awakes and finds himself alone. His dream has no external form or shape. There is no ladder and there are no angels. Jacob has to set up a stone pillar to remind himself and others of what has happened. Form and shape come only in the advent of Jesus Christ. He is the ladder, he tells Nathanael. He is the one upon whom the angels of God will ascend and descend. The dream of Jacob, who is also known as Israel, is made real in Jesus.

It is on account of this Jesus that the blood of John’s readers is being spilt; it is on account of their faith in this Jesus. But the faith that has given rise to their plight is not a longing like Macbeth’s or a dream like Jacob’s. It is not an interior belief – it is a baptismal faith. Those facing persecution have conquered ‘by the blood of the Lamb’. They have been incorporated into Christ; he is in them and they are in him. What is interior (a first spark of faith, if you will) has become exterior (the clothing of Christ) and there is no longer any distinction between them. When the martyrs suffer Christ suffers; their wounds are his wounds; as they sustain blow after blow the ladder set up to heaven from earth sustains blow after blow. Rupture between the mortal and the divine threatens. Of course the martyrs’ suffering is played out upon the most public stage of all.

Macbeth falls when the unimaginable happens. Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane, and a man not born of woman confronts the desperate tyrant. Humankind is saved when the unimaginable happens. God in Christ bridges the gulf that separates heaven from earth. As the beliefs and acts of our martyred forebears resonated throughout the cosmos so our beliefs and acts resonate throughout the cosmos, for we too have been baptized into Christ. When we witness to truth the heavens sing; when we are false, they weep. On this feast of the angels may we be recalled to the responsibility that is ours. Amen.

Sunday 5 September, Fourteenth after Trinity

I could never be justly accused of being a dedicated follower of fashion; for that matter I could never be justly accused of being a casual follower of fashion. However in the summer of 1982 baggy T-shirts with slogans printed on them in bold capital letters were all the rage. ‘ARM THE UNEMPLOYED’ screamed one. ‘RELAX’ shouted another. ‘CHOOSE LIFE’ proclaimed a third. That was the one I chose, in bright turquoise. I blush at the remembrance, and so entranced was I at my own elegance that I gave little thought to the provenance of the slogan. I certainly never thought it had its roots in the book of Deuteronomy.

Yet ‘I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying him and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days.’

Choose life. The context in which those words are spoken is important. They form part of Moses’ farewell, part of his final counsel to his people. He has led Israel through the wilderness for forty years, and he knows that his own death is drawing near. The land that God has promised is stretched out before the people. They are poised to enter it. Moses tells them that they have a choice. They can choose God, who has sustained them through their years of exodus, and live; or they can choose the idols of Canaan, the false gods of the land they are being given, and die. ‘Choose life’, Moses urges.

The context in which Jesus speaks the words of this morning’s Gospel is also important. They are addressed to the large crowds travelling with him, travelling towards Jerusalem, travelling to the city to which Luke tells us that Jesus has set his face, in which Luke tells us Jesus will accomplish a new exodus. The parallels are obvious and irresistible. Like Moses, Jesus is leading his people out of slavery. Like Moses, Jesus knows that his death is drawing near. Like Moses, Jesus believes that beyond death is the liberty that God has promised.

So Jesus too offers a choice to Israel, but the choice he offers appears to subvert the choice offered by his famous forebear. ‘Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple’ he says. ‘Choose God; choose life’ says Moses. ‘Choose God; hate life’ says Jesus.

This appears to be a subversion, a turning upside-down of Israel’s tradition. And this subversion, this turning upside-down continues in the two illustrations Jesus sketches out for his listeners. A person building a tower must count his money carefully; a king going out to wage war must count his troops carefully. Builder and warrior must ensure that they have resources that are adequate for the completion of the task. The implication is that would-be disciples of Jesus should do the same. Discipleship needs preparation. Disciples should not embark upon the journey that is prefigured by the journey to Jerusalem unless they are ready for it. But this readiness consists not in saving up funds or packing a rucksack. It consists in stripping everything back and letting everything go. ‘None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions’.

Choose life. Jesus re-fashions the teaching of the patriarchs for his audience. To win everything you must surrender everything; to choose life you must choose death; you must carry the cross. And we see the ramifications of that choice played out in the little drama of Paul, Philemon and Onesimus.

Onesimus is in all probability the heathen slave sent by his Christian master, Philemon, to care for Paul while he is in prison, as a token of thanks for Paul’s ministry. In the course of attending to Paul’s needs Onesimus has become Paul’s child: that is, he has been baptized. Now Paul is sending him back to Philemon, together with the letter that we heard as our second reading. Although it is not couched in the sharp terms of Moses or of Jesus, Paul is nonetheless offering Philemon the same choice that they offer. The name ‘Onesimus’ means ‘useful. In fact, says Paul, Onesimus has formerly been useless. He has been, in the Greek, ‘achrestos’. Philemon would have read that word and heard the similar-sounding ‘achristos’, ‘without Christ’. Onesimus was useless before his baptism. Now he is with Christ; only now he can live up to his name; only now he is truly useful.

The choice before Philemon is whether he receives back a useless slave, or a true brother in Christ; whether he plays the master or the fellow-believer; whether he behaves like the owner or the companion redeemed sinner. The choice before Philemon is whether he will give up what is rightfully his, whether he will give up his possession. The choice before Philemon is whether he will choose the way of Christ, whether he will surrender his proper claims, whether he will forego his rightful dues. Will Philemon hate life and choose death, in order to win the life that Christ promises?

That T-shirt was revived a couple of years ago, now printed, in typical Noughties fashion, on organic cotton in various pastel shades, and retailing at prices way in excess of its gaudy, mass-produced forebears. It was a rebellious, feel-good catchphrase for my generation, for Thatcher’s children in the era of nuclear proliferation and unprecedented unemployment, and, I suppose, for the same generation now approaching middle-age in the era of the war on terror and the global financial crisis. Choose Life. Well, we have the T-shirt, but dare we give it away? We can talk the talk, but can we walk the walk? Can we set our faces to Jerusalem? Amen.