Sermons

The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity
Sunday 17 September at 6.30pm

Simon Cowling
Readings: Exodus 18. 13-26; Matthew 7. 1-14

The current crisis in relations between the Vatican and Islam, occasioned by some remarks of the pope in a lecture in Germany, is a reminder of the capacity of religious faith to stir strong emotions. Over the past few days I've been reflecting on the fact that it's not only relationships between faiths that can be subject to strain. Too often within a religious tradition misunderstanding and violence arise. My reflections tonight have to do with such a misunderstanding within Christianity.
If I speak the name 'Jesus' there will, I guess, be very few of us for whom a mental image does not spring to mind. It might be an image from a children's bible of long ago, from a stained glass window in our church or from a favourite work of art. In various ways these images may well nourish our prayer life and spirituality. We certainly don't regard them as dangerous or, worse, idolatrous. But it was not always so. Recall the second commandment: You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God….

Now recall the fact that Christianity began as a messianic sect of Judaism. Indeed the first Christians were so sure of their Jewish identity that St. Paul, himself a Jew of course, had to fight tooth and nail for non-Jewish converts to Christianity to be freed from the obligation to be circumcised and observe the strict dietary laws of the Jewish faith. Small wonder, then, that the first generations of Christians objected to representational art in general and images of the Divine in particular. To represent Jesus, God made flesh, in art or sculpture was to run the risk of breaking the second commandment.
But the Jewish roots of Christianity began to wither and they virtually dried up when the Romans expelled Jews from Jerusalem under the emperor Hadrian. By the mid-second century Christianity's centre of gravity had begun to shift westward into the Roman Province of Asia, present-day western Turkey, an area that was Greek speaking and that had a thoroughly hellenized - that is to say Greek - culture. In this cultural setting the practice of creating representational art, not least of pagan gods, was deeply embedded. Each temple would have a monumental statue of its patron god or goddess and smaller versions would be used by people in shrines at home.

So it is no surprise that Christians began to look less suspiciously on representational art and by the fourth century we hear of icons - the word means a likeness or an image - of the Virgin Mary, of the Apostles and of Jesus Christ himself. Like followers of the pagan religions that they imitated Christians made both large images, suitable for use in a church, and smaller ones for private devotion. The icons might be painted, in the form of a relief sculpture or even woven into fabric. But the arguments about representational art were not over and in the 8th century there was a massive split in the church, especially in the eastern Mediterranean, about the use of icons. Some Christians renewed their attack on the use of images in worship and the attack became physical - icons were removed from churches and broken up. It's from this period that the word 'iconoclast' comes - literally meaning someone who breaks, or smashes, icons up. For a while the iconoclasts held sway but gradually those who argued for them won the day. Central to their argument was the incarnation, the coming of God in human form in the person of Jesus. Listen to what St. John of Damascus wrote early in the iconoclast period: It is not divine beauty which is given form or shape, but the human form which is rendered by the painter's brush. Therefore if God became man and appeared in man's nature why should his image not be made?

So history has bequeathed Christianity a rich store of icons, mainly painted but also in other forms, a tradition which has always been central to the Orthodox tradition of Greece and Russia but which is now increasingly appreciated in the west. The icons are often of Christ and of the Virgin Mary, but all the saints and Archangels are frequently represented. The creation of an icon is itself an act of devotion, an offering of the artist's skill and time in the context of prayer. For western Christians in the reformed tradition, including many Anglicans, the use of icons can sometimes be uncomfortable, reminding them of the second commandment's ban on idolatry with which I began. So to end with let's listen to some words form a contemporary Russian Orthodox Christian which seem to me to offer a gently persuasive argument for the use of icons whatever our tradition:

The Icons of the Saints act as a meeting point between the living members of the Church on earth and the Saints who have passed on to the Church in Heaven. The Saints depicted on the Icons are not remote, legendary figures from the past, but contemporary, personal friends. As meeting points between Heaven and earth, the Icons of Christ, His Mother, the Angels and Saints constantly remind the faithful of the invisible presence of the whole company of Heaven; they visibly express the idea of Heaven on earth.

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay