Collect
Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
or
Eternal God, give us insight to discern your will for us, to give up what harms us, and to seek the perfection we are promised in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Post Communion
Merciful Lord, grant your people grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow you, the only God; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Readings
Old Testament – Exodus 20.1–17
Then God spoke all these words:
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.
Honour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.
Psalm 19
1 The heavens are telling the glory of God ♦
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
2 One day pours out its song to another ♦
and one night unfolds knowledge to another.
3 They have neither speech nor language ♦
and their voices are not heard,
4 Yet their sound has gone out into all lands ♦
and their words to the ends of the world.
5 In them has he set a tabernacle for the sun, ♦
that comes forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber and rejoices as a champion to run his course.
6 It goes forth from the end of the heavens and runs to the very end again, ♦
and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
7 The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; ♦
the testimony of the Lord is sure and gives wisdom to the simple.
8 The statutes of the Lord are right and rejoice the heart; ♦
the commandment of the Lord is pure and gives light to the eyes.
9 The fear of the Lord is clean and endures for ever; ♦
the judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
10 More to be desired are they than gold, more than much fine gold, ♦
sweeter also than honey, dripping from the honeycomb.
11 By them also is your servant taught ♦
and in keeping them there is great reward.
12 Who can tell how often they offend? ♦
O cleanse me from my secret faults!
13 Keep your servant also from presumptuous sins lest they get dominion over me; ♦
so shall I be undefiled, and innocent of great offence.
14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, ♦
O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
Epistle – I Corinthians 1.18–25
For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,
‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
Gospel – John 2.13–22
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’ His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ The Jews then said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
Sermon on Sunday, Lent iii
I would like to paraphrase some words from Paul’s letter which we read this morning.
For some demand signs and others desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to the former and foolishness to the latter, but to those who are the called, everyone who are called, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Everyone who is “the called” gets the best of everything, don’t they? But who are the called? Do some of us want only miracles which speak of some unearthly power? Do others among us want only revelatory pronouncements that will become statements which will never be questioned? The third way denies the power of the crowd, some of which are seekers of the magical and the others who rely on the words whispered by no one, both ways are flawed, don’t you think? For both ways take away one’s autonomy, one’s own self. After all, I have no part in the crowd’s deliberations. The crowd will take over my whole being, if I let it. Either the miraculous or the siren song becomes the arbiter of all I would do in my everyday, normal life in the world. One or the other part of the crowd will overwhelm me.
The third alternative, that stumbling-block, which Paul reveals, is never considered, is it? We pass over this third way because it doesn’t conform to what we in the crowd expect – it is neither miraculous nor is it a set of words to keep us quiet. The crowd doesn’t think about this third way at all, does it? Paul tells us that Christ is the power of God and that Christ is the wisdom of God. Christ is both together. Christ is the miraculous and the wise incarnation of God in the world. Christ is a challenge to our unthinking. Christ confronts the crowd and its expectations. Christ makes us stub our toe.
So, if that is right, if we are always stubbing our toes, it is no wonder that no one wants to take this third way. It is so much easier not to answer a challenge, to slide along as we always do, without conflict in relation to ‘natural’ expectations, we are part of that crowd which drowns out all our very own thoughts. We don’t listen to the call of our conscience which questions the chattering of the crowd and wakens us from that soporific chuntering of those around us.
The religious life in every culture is no simple thing. Rather it is like that stumbling block which Paul reveals. Even the philosopher falls prey to the crowd when he joins in the crowd’s opinions. And that is despite the fact that she decries the unthinking, baying crowd because no one in it ever hears, let alone listens, to the call of conscience.
What if we do listen? What if we find that stumbling-block more persuasive than the siren-voiced crowd? What if the course of our lives takes a turn away from the simple non-choices the crowd offers us? Wouldn’t things be very different? I wonder, could we say the stumbling block is to be our mountaintop? Does it allow us to see above the crowd milling all around us? Is this stumbling block our own cross?
If so, I think we would be careering through the whole of our lives, always hitting our toes on what might be considered a foolish stumbling block by everyone around us, everyone who does not hear their inmost self crying out to let it be its authentic self. That is the crime the crowd commits – that the crowd does not accept the other as he or she needs to be cherished.
Don’t we see this all the time, when the crowd bays for the blood of someone, a politician of strong character or a leader of no quality at all? We can even see it when we go out in public. We see it in the way people rush by someone in pain, not seeing the very evident pain of homelessness or depression or even delusion. We do not let empathy have a hand in our lives, because sympathy would have us feel for the other and do something for that person. Alas, we do nothing because the crowd has diminished us.
The crowd does not want us to be different from what “they” persuade us is the case. The crowd empowers us to be like itself. I ask, whence comes our strength in the face of this overwhelming weight of the crowd by which we are immobilised? The psalmist says “my strength comes from the Lord”, doesn’t he? But who of our acquaintance would dare to say such a thing to us or who among us would dare say such a thing to anyone else today? If we listen to the crowd, we are to raise ourselves up by our own bootstraps, or get on our bikes, or some other cliché which means nothing. All these tropes assault us and weaken our resolve to do what is different, to do what is morally responsible. The crowd wants us to take an easy path, one that has been smoothed by the crowd’s unthinking and unfeeling erosion in the course of life.
When Amos reported God’s word, “Let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream,” did he have a crowd in mind? No, he was talking to you and me, individuals who would choose how to live well in the world. Amos was talking about Paul’s third path, wasn’t he? The path which ultimately is one of painful suffering, if only of the ego. Amos and Christ knew the sacrifice of a pure heart, a suffering in front of the eyes of the world, a life of constant stumbling against the blocks of moral behaviour.
The crowd has swept away the stumbling block because it looks elsewhere for its sense. It concentrates on only one thing and can see nothing else. Either it is looking at miracles or worldly wisdom. Paul suggests to his hearers that both are necessary for the good life. Both the power of God to do miracles and the wisdom of God to guide through all life’s difficulty are integrated in Paul’s third way. It is a balanced mode of life.
The christian can extol the power of God in the world and her own life – that is, the wisdom of God can be discerned. The christian does not limit life to one aspect. The christian lives in power and wisdom, what has been given to us all. I would like to say that the christian can engage with all of creation because of the balance of faith, the life of moderation.
We can stand alone because we know about power and wisdom. Perhaps the christian stands atop of those stumbling-blocks and can see more in life than the crowd might see in its blinkered imagination in the valleys between those blocks. Paul recommends to us a way that we have to make our own. It must be made real in every single life because nothing stands still in space and time. Each of us has to live out our conscience for ourselves. This is not something a crowd can do! The crowd becomes our ownmost possibility for the individual paradoxically. We stand alone in the midst of the crowd to become ourselves as we stumble and we must encourage the person beside us, who will have to struggle, just as we did, long after our own battles are over and the victory is won.
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