Collect
Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray and to give more than either we desire or deserve: pour down upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask but through the merits and mediation of 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
God of constant mercy, who sent your Son to save us: remind us of your goodness, increase your grace within us, that our thankfulness may grow, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Post Communion
God of all mercy, in this eucharist you have set aside our sins and given us your healing: grant that we who are made whole in Christ may bring that healing to this broken world, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Readings
Old Testament
O Lord, you know;
remember me and visit me,
and bring down retribution for me on my persecutors.
In your forbearance do not take me away;
know that on your account I suffer insult.
Your words were found, and I ate them,
and your words became to me a joy
and the delight of my heart;
for I am called by your name,
O Lord, God of hosts.
I did not sit in the company of merrymakers,
nor did I rejoice;
under the weight of your hand I sat alone,
for you had filled me with indignation.
Why is my pain unceasing,
my wound incurable,
refusing to be healed?
Truly, you are to me like a deceitful brook,
like waters that fail.
Therefore, thus says the Lord:
If you turn back, I will take you back,
and you shall stand before me.
If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless,
you shall serve as my mouth.
It is they who will turn to you,
not you who will turn to them.
And I will make you to this people
a fortified wall of bronze;
they will fight against you,
but they shall not prevail over you,
for I am with you
to save you and deliver you,
says the Lord.
I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked,
and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless.
This is my name for ever, and this my title for all generations.
Jeremiah 15:15-21
Psalm
1 Give judgement for me, O Lord, for I have walked with integrity;
I have trusted in the Lord and have not faltered.
2 Test me, O Lord, and try me;
examine my heart and my mind.
3 For your love is before my eyes;
I have walked in your truth.
4 I have not joined the company of the false,
nor consorted with the deceitful.
5 I hate the gathering of evildoers
and I will not sit down with the wicked.
6 I will wash my hands in innocence, O Lord,
that I may go about your altar,
7 To make heard the voice of thanksgiving
and tell of all your wonderful deeds.
8 Lord, I love the house of your habitation
and the place where your glory abides.
Psalm 26
Epistle
Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.>
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Romans 12:9-21
Gospel>
From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.’ But he turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling-block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’
Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?
‘For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.’
Matthew 16:21-28
Sermon on Sunday, Trinity 12
The prophet cries out in anguish,
I did not sit in the company of merrymakers,
nor did I rejoice;
under the weight of your hand I sat alone,
for you had filled me with indignation.
I think this lamentation from Jeremiah the prophet is echoed in our own time. How often do we cry over the folly of our contemporaries? We who have eaten of the Lord and tasted how good it was. How often we curse the greed of our own crowd! – We who know the generosity of the Lord to even the most despicable sinner. Do we ever cease to imprecate against the political savants who have led us into our present situation? We wonder, “why hasn’t anyone else fallen under the weight of the prophet’s indignation, that prophet who felt the hand of the Lord so heavy upon him?” He sat alone, with no company, prophesying the Lord’s condemnation to all who would hear. We sit alone amazed at the folly of the world around us. They laugh around us, with no thought for others or, seemingly, even for themselves. Alas, we sit alone and do not rejoice with our own crowd.
I think all of us have lamented the world in which we live, and it seems we can do nothing to transform it. Jeremiah sits alone under the weight of God’s judgement of humanity. He sits with a soul full of indignation awaiting the demise of those who do not see the world through eyes that seek only righteousness, through minds that probe for the good, or through hearts that love without counting any cost. He sits with no one by his side, just as we imagine we do here and now, lamenting the delay of the last judgement.
However, I have not decided to lament with Jeremiah. Rather, I want to declare my conversion.
Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? What will they give in return for their life?
I want to say that I have chosen the way of the cross and follow Jesus without any compunction, but I would be a liar. There are so many doubts we hold on to when we live in the world. Let us turn to Jesus’ words for a few moments to consider them afresh.
There is so much in these words that must be interpreted by ourselves for ourselves here and now. You and I must make our decision, just as the hymn resounds, “Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide.” That moment is now. Every moment is the moment to do what is right, what God expects, let alone what my neighbour requires.
I tracked down the whole of the hymn I just quoted because it is not well known on this fair isle. It is a hymn which is always at the back of my mind, because the Welsh tune, Ebeneezer, to which it is indelibly set in my mind, is a wonderful marching song. It provides the beat to which I wish to walk, let alone provide a sentiment which impels me on my journey. I often find myself humming the tune as I walk along. Listen to these words from the second verse :
By the light of burning martyrs,
Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track,
Toiling up new Calv’ries ever
With the cross that turns not back;
This is the cross we would choose, always ahead of us on the road into the future, which is so very different to the life we lead here and now. That cross reminds us of the choice we have made for the good and the truth, despite the fact that evil prospers and our portion seems only to be the scaffold on which the future sways.
And, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow,
We are lost staring through that noose, in which a dim unknown is hidden. God stands within the shadow cast by the scaffold, the final judgement on our lives
Keeping watch above His own.
Even in that shadow God stands. That should give us hope, don’t you think? Despite the fact that evil prospers and wrong resides on the thrones of this world, we should peer into the gloom of what we consider the future.
This is a rather dubious place to be looking forward, as so many people have discovered today, after lockdown and the lack of a restart for many people’s working lives. They certainly look into the dim unknown within the shadow in front of which seems to stand a scaffold.
What are we to do? It is no good to be indignant, like Achilles in his tent, fuelling the fires of petty selfish wrath as we sit on our beds brooding on what personal vengeance we would like to wreak on the world where we don’t get our own way. Rather we should stoke the fires of righteous indignation – to see what is wrong all around us and to change our ways so that the good can be accomplished here and now. We have to sweep the evil off the thrones of the world and out of our hearts. We should no longer weep in our tents alone, because, as the hymn goes on, “the choice goes by forever / ‘Twixt that darkness and that light.”
We need to make that choice, to take up the cross of Christ. But here comes the confusion – what is the path we ought to tread? Where does Jesus lead us in our lives while he offers us the choice between the bloom or blight of our lives? That life in all its fullness which the bishop exhorts the diocese to live.
What is more – the words of that hymn echo the sentiment of the words from Jesus we read this morning. We have a choice to make for truth and good.
Then to side with truth is noble,
When we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit,
And ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses
While the coward stands aside,
Till the multitude make virtue
Of the faith they had denied.
They have always said, Justice is its own reward, as we would concur that so is with goodness and truth. Our choice to take up the cross provides no riches nor fame. After all, that choice only sent Jesus to Calvary. But why did we not see what Jesus saw as the scaffold sway before him, just as it does before us, offering only faith through the dim shadows of a future. That is the point at which the brave choose for that light.
Lockdown should have woken us to this choice before us. It should have given us resolve. Lockdown should have been a radical restart for the whole world.
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