The Bishop of Ebbsfleet was the celebrant and preacher today for our sung Mass that brought to a conclusion our Year of Grace, the year in which we celebrated the 150th anniversary of the life of our church. We took the opportunity to celebrate the Mass of the Conversion of St Paul. It was a delight to have Bishop Andrew with us. (More photos below)
Here is the homily he has given us.
Jesus our Lord… was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification. Romans 4:25 (NRSV)
OVER HALF OF the books of the New Testament are said to have been written by St Paul. Even if we find a reason here or there for saying that this book or that book probably wasn’t written by his own hand, he remains the most influential voice we have – apart from the Lord himself - as we seek to be disciples of Jesus Christ. He has more to say than Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. In some parts of the Church he seems to be the only person people study and listen to. Meanwhile hostile critics have accused him of building a whole religion of his own – ‘Paulianity’ in place of ‘Christianity’. These critics see Jesus as a Jewish rabbi with some very interesting things to say, turned by Paul into the Son of God who overturns the Jewish religion and replaces it with a new one. I don’t think we need to pay too much attention to that: the claims of Jesus Christ to be the Son of God can equally be made and substantiated from the four gospels. I shall be saying a little more about the relationship between Jesus and Paul in a few moments.
Brilliantly creative though Paul was as a theologian, the key to his thinking – in my view – is what is handed on. When he speaks to the Corinthians about the Eucharist he says (1 Cor 11:23) ‘For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you’. He received the teaching from Christ and then he handed it on. Earlier in the same chapter (1 Cor 11:2), he says ‘I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you’. Again, handing on. A few chapters later, he says ‘For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scripture’ (1 Cor 15:3) and he goes on to list what else has been handed on: that Christ was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, that he appeared to Peter and the Twelve and to more than 500 brethren at one time, some of whom were still alive when Paul was writing, and then to James, and then to all the apostles and ‘last of all, as to one untimely born’ to Paul himself. (cf 1 Cor 15:4-8).
This notion of ‘handing on’, ‘delivering’, is at the root of our word ‘tradition’. Rooting through St Paul, there are a couple of other interesting uses of this idea. In the Second Letter to the Thessalonians, one of the earliest writings, he says ‘So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter’ (2:15) and a few verses later ‘keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us’. (3:6).
I think we can spot a major difference between Paul, the preacher of Christianity, and Jesus, its founder, in this attitude to tradition. Paul is very concerned to preserve tradition. Speaking of his past as a pharisee, he says ‘I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous I was for the traditions of my fathers’ (Gal 1:14). Once he is converted to Christianity, he becomes very concerned to get it right: ‘I went up [to Jerusalem] and I laid before [the apostles] (but privately before those who were of repute) the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, lest somehow I should be running or had run in vain’ (Gal 2:2). Jesus – with his divine authority – shows much less concern to keep to what has been received. ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you’. Constantly, in his battles with the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus invites them to look behind the letter of the law to discover the free and creative Spirit of God leading us to a deeper understanding of love and human behaviour. ‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders?’ ask the Pharisees and scribes (e.g. Mk 7:5). Jesus replies ‘You leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men’ (Mk 7:8).
What we have, then, is Christ, the Divine Founder of our Faith, opening up the Jewish tradition and filling it with new life and insight. That is the Gospel. We then have Paul, supreme among the theologians, exploring what the Gospel means but being very careful to be faithful to what he is ‘handing on’ and ‘delivering’. Tradition is not a dead letter, a piece of history anxiously held on to, but the guarantee of continuity. And tradition, as St Paul told the Thessalonians is ‘by word of mouth or by letter’, it is the unbroken teaching of the Church as well as the constant witness of Holy Scripture.
In the few brief moments which are left to me, I want to move on from ‘handing on’ and ‘delivering’ – in the sense of tradition – to ‘handing on’ and ‘delivering’ in the sense of ‘handing over’. The text for this sermon speaks of Jesus being handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification. Here, arguably, is the very centre of Paul’s teaching on the cross. I am not today going to preach about that – though nothing could be more important. All I want you to do is notice that the words ‘handed over to death’ translate a Greek verb, paredothe, which in Latin comes out as traditus. Play around with traditus and you end up with all sorts of interesting links: ‘tradition’, ‘trade’, ‘betrayal’. The message we hang on to, stay faithful to, is faith in the One who …was handed over to death for our trespasses and …raised for our justification. That is what we must ‘hand on’. We must hand on that he was ‘handed over’, betrayed, traded for 30 pieces of silver. We must hand on that he was raised up on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, that he appeared to Peter and the Twelve and to more than 500 brethren at one time, some of whom were still alive when Paul was writing, and then to James, and then to all the apostles and ‘last of all, as to one untimely born’ to Paul himself. And, if we are faithful to the tradition of word and mouth, what has been delivered to us, we must pass on urgently by word and mouth what Paul passed on to the Corinthians, when he taught them about the Eucharist. In a society in which people have re-invented the Christian Faith as a form of good behaviour and say ‘you don’t have to go to Church to be a Christian’, it is important to proclaim what we do here at Mass. For, at the very heart of our tradition, and what we must treasure – what you must treasure and safeguard here at St John’s - is the mystery of ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory’ (Col 1:27). Through the Eucharist ‘it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me’ (Gal 2:20) for, as St Paul said to the Corinthians ‘As often as you eat this bread and drink the chalice, you proclaim the Lord’s death’ – his ‘handing over’ – ‘until he comes’ (1 Cor 11:26).
Glory be to Jesus our Lord [who] was handed over to death for our trespasses and… raised for our justification
Here is the homily he has given us.
Jesus our Lord… was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification. Romans 4:25 (NRSV)
OVER HALF OF the books of the New Testament are said to have been written by St Paul. Even if we find a reason here or there for saying that this book or that book probably wasn’t written by his own hand, he remains the most influential voice we have – apart from the Lord himself - as we seek to be disciples of Jesus Christ. He has more to say than Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. In some parts of the Church he seems to be the only person people study and listen to. Meanwhile hostile critics have accused him of building a whole religion of his own – ‘Paulianity’ in place of ‘Christianity’. These critics see Jesus as a Jewish rabbi with some very interesting things to say, turned by Paul into the Son of God who overturns the Jewish religion and replaces it with a new one. I don’t think we need to pay too much attention to that: the claims of Jesus Christ to be the Son of God can equally be made and substantiated from the four gospels. I shall be saying a little more about the relationship between Jesus and Paul in a few moments.
Brilliantly creative though Paul was as a theologian, the key to his thinking – in my view – is what is handed on. When he speaks to the Corinthians about the Eucharist he says (1 Cor 11:23) ‘For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you’. He received the teaching from Christ and then he handed it on. Earlier in the same chapter (1 Cor 11:2), he says ‘I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you’. Again, handing on. A few chapters later, he says ‘For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scripture’ (1 Cor 15:3) and he goes on to list what else has been handed on: that Christ was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, that he appeared to Peter and the Twelve and to more than 500 brethren at one time, some of whom were still alive when Paul was writing, and then to James, and then to all the apostles and ‘last of all, as to one untimely born’ to Paul himself. (cf 1 Cor 15:4-8).
This notion of ‘handing on’, ‘delivering’, is at the root of our word ‘tradition’. Rooting through St Paul, there are a couple of other interesting uses of this idea. In the Second Letter to the Thessalonians, one of the earliest writings, he says ‘So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter’ (2:15) and a few verses later ‘keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us’. (3:6).
I think we can spot a major difference between Paul, the preacher of Christianity, and Jesus, its founder, in this attitude to tradition. Paul is very concerned to preserve tradition. Speaking of his past as a pharisee, he says ‘I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous I was for the traditions of my fathers’ (Gal 1:14). Once he is converted to Christianity, he becomes very concerned to get it right: ‘I went up [to Jerusalem] and I laid before [the apostles] (but privately before those who were of repute) the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, lest somehow I should be running or had run in vain’ (Gal 2:2). Jesus – with his divine authority – shows much less concern to keep to what has been received. ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you’. Constantly, in his battles with the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus invites them to look behind the letter of the law to discover the free and creative Spirit of God leading us to a deeper understanding of love and human behaviour. ‘Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders?’ ask the Pharisees and scribes (e.g. Mk 7:5). Jesus replies ‘You leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men’ (Mk 7:8).
What we have, then, is Christ, the Divine Founder of our Faith, opening up the Jewish tradition and filling it with new life and insight. That is the Gospel. We then have Paul, supreme among the theologians, exploring what the Gospel means but being very careful to be faithful to what he is ‘handing on’ and ‘delivering’. Tradition is not a dead letter, a piece of history anxiously held on to, but the guarantee of continuity. And tradition, as St Paul told the Thessalonians is ‘by word of mouth or by letter’, it is the unbroken teaching of the Church as well as the constant witness of Holy Scripture.
In the few brief moments which are left to me, I want to move on from ‘handing on’ and ‘delivering’ – in the sense of tradition – to ‘handing on’ and ‘delivering’ in the sense of ‘handing over’. The text for this sermon speaks of Jesus being handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification. Here, arguably, is the very centre of Paul’s teaching on the cross. I am not today going to preach about that – though nothing could be more important. All I want you to do is notice that the words ‘handed over to death’ translate a Greek verb, paredothe, which in Latin comes out as traditus. Play around with traditus and you end up with all sorts of interesting links: ‘tradition’, ‘trade’, ‘betrayal’. The message we hang on to, stay faithful to, is faith in the One who …was handed over to death for our trespasses and …raised for our justification. That is what we must ‘hand on’. We must hand on that he was ‘handed over’, betrayed, traded for 30 pieces of silver. We must hand on that he was raised up on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, that he appeared to Peter and the Twelve and to more than 500 brethren at one time, some of whom were still alive when Paul was writing, and then to James, and then to all the apostles and ‘last of all, as to one untimely born’ to Paul himself. And, if we are faithful to the tradition of word and mouth, what has been delivered to us, we must pass on urgently by word and mouth what Paul passed on to the Corinthians, when he taught them about the Eucharist. In a society in which people have re-invented the Christian Faith as a form of good behaviour and say ‘you don’t have to go to Church to be a Christian’, it is important to proclaim what we do here at Mass. For, at the very heart of our tradition, and what we must treasure – what you must treasure and safeguard here at St John’s - is the mystery of ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory’ (Col 1:27). Through the Eucharist ‘it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me’ (Gal 2:20) for, as St Paul said to the Corinthians ‘As often as you eat this bread and drink the chalice, you proclaim the Lord’s death’ – his ‘handing over’ – ‘until he comes’ (1 Cor 11:26).
Glory be to Jesus our Lord [who] was handed over to death for our trespasses and… raised for our justification
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