But the ‘you’ upon whom the kingdom has come are not people in the Church but people in the world. To say ‘Jesus is Lord’ pledges us to find the effects of his cross and resurrection in the world, not just in our inner lives, nor in the Church.
The way in which Jesus both declared the kingdom and lived in the freedom of the kingdom provides the model of what the Church is created to be. The Church is not the kingdom but, through the Spirit indwelling their fellowship, Christians live the kingdom life as men and women of the world.
The mission of the Church, therefore, is to live the ordinary life of human beings in that extraordinary awareness of the other and self-sacrifice for the other which the Spirit gives. Christian activity will be very largely the same as the world’s activity – earning a living, bringing up a family, making friends, having fun, celebrating occasions, farming, manufacturing, trading, building cities, healing sickness, alleviating distress, mourning, studying, exploring, making music, and so on. Christians will try to do these things to the glory of God, which is to say that they will try to perceive what God is up to in each of these manifold activities and will seek to do it with him by bearing responsibility for the selves of others.
Saturday after Epiphany 3
A Reading from a sermon of Peter Chrysologus, Bishop of Ravenna
God, seeing the world falling into ruin through fear, never stops working to bring it back into being through love, inviting it back by grace, holding it firm by charity, and embracing it with affection.
God washes the earth, steeped in evil, with the avenging flood. He calls Noah the father of a new world, speaks gently to him and encourages him. He gives him fatherly instruction about the present and consoles him with good hope about the future. He did not give orders, but instead shared in the work of enclosing together in the ark all living creatures on the earth. In this way the love of being together would drive out the fear born of slavery. What had been saved by a shared enterprise was now to be preserved by a community of love.
This is the reason, too, why God calls Abraham from among the nations and makes his name great. He makes him the father of those who believe, accompanies him on his journeys, and takes care of him amid foreigners. He enriches him with possessions, honours him with triumphs, and binds himself to Abraham with promises. He snatches him from harm, is hospitable to him, and astonishes him with the gift of a son he had given up hope of ever having. All this God does so that, filled with many good things, and drawn by the sweetness of divine love, Abraham might learn to love God and not to be afraid of him, to worship him in love rather than in trembling fear.
This is the reason, too, why God comforts the fugitive Jacob as he sleeps. On his way back he calls him to the contest and wrestles with him in his arms. Again, this was to teach him to love and not to fear the father of the contest.
This is why God invites Moses to be the liberator of his people, calling him with a fatherly voice and speaking to him with a fatherly voice.
All the events we are recalling reveal the human heart fired with the flame of the love of God, senses flooded to the point of intoxication with that love, leading people on, until wounded by love they begin to want to look upon the face of God with their bodily eyes.
How could the narrowness of human vision ever enclose God whom the entire world cannot contain? The law of love has no thought about what might be, what ought to be or what can be. Love knows nothing of judgement, reaches beyond reason, and laughs at moderation. Love takes no relief from the fact that the object of its desire is beyond possibility, nor is it dissuaded by difficulties. If love does not attain what it desires it kills the lover, with the result that it will go where it is led, not where it ought to go. Love breeds a desire so strong as to make its way into forbidden territory. Love cannot bear not to catch sight of what it longs for. That is why the saints thought that they merited nothing if they could not see the Lord. It is why love that longs to see God has a spirit of devotion, even if it lacks judgement. It is why Moses dares to say to God: ‘If I have found favour in your sight, show me your face.’
It is also why God, aware that people were suffering pain and weariness from their longing to see him, chose as a means to make himself visible, something which was to be great to the dwellers on earth, and by no means insignificant to the dwellers in heaven. He chose to come to humankind as a human being, assuming our nature, in order to be seen by us.
The Fourth Sunday of Epiphany
A Reading from a sermon of Leo the Great
Our Lord Jesus Christ, born truly human without ever ceasing to be true God, was in his own person the prelude of a new creation, and by the manner of his birth he gave humanity a spiritual origin. What mind can grasp this? What tongue can do justice to this gift of love? Guilt becomes innocence, what was old becomes new, strangers are adopted into the family and outsiders are made heirs.
Rouse yourself, therefore, and recognise the dignity of your nature. Remember that you were made in God’s image; and though defaced in Adam, that image has now been restored in Christ. Use this visible creation as it should be used: the earth, the sea, the sky, the air, the springs and rivers. Give praise and glory to their Creator for all that you find beautiful and wonderful in them. See with your bodily eyes the sunlight shining upon the earth, but embrace with your whole soul and all your affections ‘the true light which enlightens everyone who comes into this world’. Speaking of this light the prophet David in the psalms says: ‘Look on him and be radiant; and your face shall never be ashamed.’ If we are indeed the temple of God and if the Spirit of God lives in us, then what every believer has within is of greater worth than what we can admire in the skies.
My friends, in saying this it is not my intention to make you undervalue God’s works or think there is anything contrary to your faith in creation, for the good God has himself made all things good. What I do mean is that you use reasonably and in a balanced way the rich variety of creation which makes this world beautiful; for as the Apostle says: ‘the things that are seen are transient but the things that are unseen are eternal.’
For we are born in the present only to be reborn in the future. Our attachment, therefore, should not be to the transitory; instead, we must be intent upon the eternal. Let us constantly reflect on how divine grace has transformed our earthly natures so that we may contemplate more closely our heavenly hope. And let us attend to the words of the apostle Paul: ‘You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. But when Christ your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.’
Note: If a reading about Cana of Galilee is required, see either alternative reading for Epiphany 2 or Tuesday after Trinity 9.
Monday after Epiphany 4
A Reading from The Revelations of Mechtild of Magdeburg also known as The Flowing Light of the Godhead
GOD
You are hunting desperately for your love.
What do you bring me, O my Queen?
SOUL
Lord, I bring you my treasure;
It is greater than the mountains,
Wider than the world,
Deeper than the ocean,
Higher than the clouds,
More glorious than the sun,
More numerous than the stars,
And it outweighs the entire earth!
GOD
O image of my Godhead,
Ennobled by my own humanity,
Adorned by my Holy Spirit,
What is your treasure called?
SOUL
Lord, it is called my heart’s desire.
I have withdrawn it