Sermons

Sixth Sunday after Trinity
Sunday 23rd July at 8am and 6.30pm

Simon Cowling
Readings: Jeremiah 23. 1-6; Mark 6.30-34 & 53-56

'Shalu shlom Yerushalayim'. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. These words from Psalm 122 in the Hebrew scriptures are surely some of the most haunting of all for those of us who have known little else but conflict in that part of the Middle East we call the Holy Land. We pray for peace, even though we sense that continued violence and death, with all its accompanying grief and the reinforcement of hatred and division, are what is most likely.

One of the great cultural archetypes, common to societies across the world, is the idea of the Golden Age: in our own culture, for instance, this idea permeates literature from Chaucer onwards. The Golden Age is virtually always a past that is just out of reach; almost, but never quite, tangible. It is a past into which people often express the wish to retreat, a haven from the uncertainties of the present.

I said the Golden Age was virtually always in the past, because in the Hebrew Scriptures discussion about the Golden Age is usually conducted in the future tense. Certainly there is the account of Paradise Lost in Genesis chapter 3; but although this story has loomed large in Christian theology from St. Paul onwards, it has never had the same importance for Jews. Their past has been dominated by violence and tragedy: slavery in Egypt; exile in Babylon; the very destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans; centuries of persecution and expulsion by Christians in Europe, culminating in the Shoa, the Holocaust; most recently the expulsion of their ancient communities from Muslim lands in the Middle East following the establishment of the modern state of Israel.

The ministry of Jeremiah, in common with many of the prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures, was shaped by, and was a response to, tragedy - in his case the events leading up to the fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Temple by Nebuchadnezzar and the subsequent exile of the Jews in the early part of the sixth century before Christ. Interestingly Jeremiah's anger, as in today's portion of chapter 23, is often directed not at the invader but at those in authority in the kingdom of Judah who, as he sees it, have neglected their duty towards God's people: This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says about the rulers who were supposed to take care of his people: "You have not taken care of my people, you have scattered them and driven them away. Now I am going to punish you for what you have done." (Jer. 23.2)

We do not know what Jeremiah might have said to the leaders of modern Israel, how he might have seen the tragedy unfolding there today. But here, from the time of the Roman occupation of the Holy Land, is a rabbinic exposition, a midrash, of a story in Genesis which I found suggestive.

The herdsmen of Abraham and his nephew Lot fell out over pasture rights. Although Abraham's herdsmen kept their cattle muzzled while they were on Lot's fields, Lot's herdsmen let their cattle graze freely on Abraham's land. When challenged about this they replied that, although Abraham had been promised the whole of the land of Canaan, everyone knew that he would have no direct descendants. Lot's cattle were simply grazing on land that would soon belong to him, as Abraham's only descendant. God replied, "Yes, I have indeed given the land to Abraham and to his descendants, but only after the seven native nations have left the land. Today, the Canaanites and the Perizzites are still living there so they have right of possession, until the proper time comes for Abraham and his descendants to take it over."

There are many ways of interpreting this fascinating piece of rabbinic wisdom. But at a time when Israel is engaging in a policy of maximum force in an attempt to safeguard its people from Hezbollah rocket attacks, one way is to see in it a warning that in times of threat for the Jewish people it is wise diplomacy rather than outright military confrontation that is more likely to bring nearer the Golden Age so longed for by the prophets. Christians, of course, would want to say that we have glimpsed the reality of that Golden Age in Jesus Christ. Jews are unlikely to see things that way. But we can surely join with them, with Muslims and with all people of faith, in praying for peace in the land of the Prince of Peace. Amen.

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay