It is very much the case that the news that we hear on the radio or see on the television is all doom and gloom. It seems that we live in a divided and broken world, a world in which our political leaders seem to cause more division than they have fostered unity. But the politicians can point to the Church and tell us that people in glasshouses shouldn’t throw stones. We have to be honest and admit that we have had shepherds who to quote the Lord speaking through Jeremiah: “destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture.” The readings in today’s Mass confront us with this work of the devil whose favourite tactic is to divide and then conquer, as generals do in wars.
The events of the past week in The Episcopal Church in the United States have shown just how far off the rails some shepherds have gone. The Anglican Church cannot simply accept any and all behaviour as consistent with the gospel no matter how much people may want it to. The Church is not the Lord of the Universe, no Jesus is. What he requires of us is sometimes hard to live up to and all of us fail to live up to that standard from time to time, but we do not please him by then seeking to change the message of the Gospel so that we can fool ourselves into thinking that we have not sinned after all.
What is happening in America is that some shepherds are not leading their people into green pastures, nor beside still waters, they are not restoring souls or leading people in the paths of righteousness. And having led people astray by false teaching when they walk through the valley of death they find that they have been left without a rod or a staff to comfort them and keep them from fearing evil.
This is precisely what happened in Israel in former times. The spiritual leaders who were called to shepherd God’s people taught them false doctrines and led them astray into all manner of false religions. Asherah poles, which were fertility cult symbols, and images of the false god Baal were set up in the land and even in the Temple. Kings and priests and false prophets led the people astray, and through Jeremiah God rails against such people and God promises to do something about it. He promises to provide them with shepherds who will care for them and ultimately to raise up one righteous Branch and note the capital B in Branch for this is a prophecy about a person and we believe this prophecy refers to Christ.
In biblical terms, leadership is presented to us as good shepherding. We don’t like to think of ourselves as sheep but when you stop and reflect on it a bit, isn’t it true that people flock together when they see others going a certain way? The humbling truth is that we want to be lead and we uncritically follow many who present themselves to us as leaders. Just look at how financial markets panic or recover on stock exchanges. People flock to films that critics have acclaimed, the critics themselves using standards that warrant some close examination themselves. Many of us pursue what is popular; we want to know what’s “in” and what’s “out.” When you spend some time thinking about it you can see many areas in your own experiences where people engage in flocking like sheep.
In today’s Gospel account we find Jesus taking His apostles to a leadership-training seminar. By taking them out into a deserted place, He removes His apostles from the distractions and concerns they’ve been experiencing. They needed a break. They needed to reflect. They need to stop being distracted by the world and its values. When someone goes out into a deserted place and stays there long enough, he or she begins to see what really matters and what doesn’t. Eventually, when all of the ordinary routines and supports have been removed from life, they begin to experience reliance on God, on God’s loving care. They begin to realize that the most important gift we need is the recognition of and experience of God’s care for us.
This is a journey, made by many saints, seers, and holy ones, and invariably it brought to them an awareness of God’s compassion, mercy and forgiveness, God’s love for us. St Giles was just such a person. He could have been the son of royal or noble parents according to some ancient sources, but whatever his lineage he chose to live as a hermit, to spend time with God and in seeking his will. Little could St Giles have imagined what God had in store for him. His one companion in the forest, the lonely place he had sought out to spend time alone with Jesus, was a hind and the story goes that he placed his body between the king’s archers and the hind thus getting wounded and becoming a patron saint of cripples. But the King was so mortified that he eventually built a monastery for St Giles and the Church agreed to him becoming the first Abbot. There are many stories of miracles associated with St Giles following his becoming an Abbot, but they all stem from his time spent alone with Jesus seeking his will rather than his own. In being alone he was not distracted by the world’s voice, he was not tempted to listen to the latest secular thinking or to water down the faith in order that people would listen to him. In isolation and in being alone he was able to discover God and truly discover his own place in the scheme of things.
There was a documentary on television recently about an Anglican priest who went off and experienced some very strange and esoteric things. He engaged in some things that were highly suspect and totally unchristian at times. But there was one episode where he spent time in the Sinai desert. To start with he had some time with the Coptic monks and then he spent some considerable weeks in a small cave in the desert. A monk warned him beforehand that this would be the most terrifying experience of his life and yet in the end the most spiritually rewarding. Each day he recorded his experiences in a video diary and what the monk had told him came true. What we learn from this is that time spent alone with God is not running away from the world, rather it is time spent facing reality: the reality of God and the reality of ourselves – our shortcomings, our sinfulness, our fears and our need of God.
St Giles period as a hermit in the forest equipped him to be the wise and holy Abbot he became. It would be my suggestion that the shepherds who are leading the flock astray in the USA, and indeed elsewhere, have spent too much time listening to the world and anguishing about what the world thinks of the church, instead of spending time with God being prepared and given grace and strength to face the world and to counter its false values, its blandishments, its false glitter and its promise of preferment if only we will acquiesce to its values.
I deliberately asked Brother Leon to create an Icon of St Giles as a hermit to remind us of the importance of prayer, of the need to withdraw into a lonely place and to spend time with Jesus. If we follow his example we will find that we will be strengthened to endure and find that the Lord is indeed our shepherd who makes us lie down in green pastures and leads us besides still waters in order that our souls may be refreshed, and that we do not fear evil.
The events of the past week in The Episcopal Church in the United States have shown just how far off the rails some shepherds have gone. The Anglican Church cannot simply accept any and all behaviour as consistent with the gospel no matter how much people may want it to. The Church is not the Lord of the Universe, no Jesus is. What he requires of us is sometimes hard to live up to and all of us fail to live up to that standard from time to time, but we do not please him by then seeking to change the message of the Gospel so that we can fool ourselves into thinking that we have not sinned after all.
What is happening in America is that some shepherds are not leading their people into green pastures, nor beside still waters, they are not restoring souls or leading people in the paths of righteousness. And having led people astray by false teaching when they walk through the valley of death they find that they have been left without a rod or a staff to comfort them and keep them from fearing evil.
This is precisely what happened in Israel in former times. The spiritual leaders who were called to shepherd God’s people taught them false doctrines and led them astray into all manner of false religions. Asherah poles, which were fertility cult symbols, and images of the false god Baal were set up in the land and even in the Temple. Kings and priests and false prophets led the people astray, and through Jeremiah God rails against such people and God promises to do something about it. He promises to provide them with shepherds who will care for them and ultimately to raise up one righteous Branch and note the capital B in Branch for this is a prophecy about a person and we believe this prophecy refers to Christ.
In biblical terms, leadership is presented to us as good shepherding. We don’t like to think of ourselves as sheep but when you stop and reflect on it a bit, isn’t it true that people flock together when they see others going a certain way? The humbling truth is that we want to be lead and we uncritically follow many who present themselves to us as leaders. Just look at how financial markets panic or recover on stock exchanges. People flock to films that critics have acclaimed, the critics themselves using standards that warrant some close examination themselves. Many of us pursue what is popular; we want to know what’s “in” and what’s “out.” When you spend some time thinking about it you can see many areas in your own experiences where people engage in flocking like sheep.
In today’s Gospel account we find Jesus taking His apostles to a leadership-training seminar. By taking them out into a deserted place, He removes His apostles from the distractions and concerns they’ve been experiencing. They needed a break. They needed to reflect. They need to stop being distracted by the world and its values. When someone goes out into a deserted place and stays there long enough, he or she begins to see what really matters and what doesn’t. Eventually, when all of the ordinary routines and supports have been removed from life, they begin to experience reliance on God, on God’s loving care. They begin to realize that the most important gift we need is the recognition of and experience of God’s care for us.
This is a journey, made by many saints, seers, and holy ones, and invariably it brought to them an awareness of God’s compassion, mercy and forgiveness, God’s love for us. St Giles was just such a person. He could have been the son of royal or noble parents according to some ancient sources, but whatever his lineage he chose to live as a hermit, to spend time with God and in seeking his will. Little could St Giles have imagined what God had in store for him. His one companion in the forest, the lonely place he had sought out to spend time alone with Jesus, was a hind and the story goes that he placed his body between the king’s archers and the hind thus getting wounded and becoming a patron saint of cripples. But the King was so mortified that he eventually built a monastery for St Giles and the Church agreed to him becoming the first Abbot. There are many stories of miracles associated with St Giles following his becoming an Abbot, but they all stem from his time spent alone with Jesus seeking his will rather than his own. In being alone he was not distracted by the world’s voice, he was not tempted to listen to the latest secular thinking or to water down the faith in order that people would listen to him. In isolation and in being alone he was able to discover God and truly discover his own place in the scheme of things.
There was a documentary on television recently about an Anglican priest who went off and experienced some very strange and esoteric things. He engaged in some things that were highly suspect and totally unchristian at times. But there was one episode where he spent time in the Sinai desert. To start with he had some time with the Coptic monks and then he spent some considerable weeks in a small cave in the desert. A monk warned him beforehand that this would be the most terrifying experience of his life and yet in the end the most spiritually rewarding. Each day he recorded his experiences in a video diary and what the monk had told him came true. What we learn from this is that time spent alone with God is not running away from the world, rather it is time spent facing reality: the reality of God and the reality of ourselves – our shortcomings, our sinfulness, our fears and our need of God.
St Giles period as a hermit in the forest equipped him to be the wise and holy Abbot he became. It would be my suggestion that the shepherds who are leading the flock astray in the USA, and indeed elsewhere, have spent too much time listening to the world and anguishing about what the world thinks of the church, instead of spending time with God being prepared and given grace and strength to face the world and to counter its false values, its blandishments, its false glitter and its promise of preferment if only we will acquiesce to its values.
I deliberately asked Brother Leon to create an Icon of St Giles as a hermit to remind us of the importance of prayer, of the need to withdraw into a lonely place and to spend time with Jesus. If we follow his example we will find that we will be strengthened to endure and find that the Lord is indeed our shepherd who makes us lie down in green pastures and leads us besides still waters in order that our souls may be refreshed, and that we do not fear evil.
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