What Grips Our Attention?
You can listen to this sermon here
Gate Pa – Year B 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time,
The Sermon
1. Introduction:
I wonder how you are feeling? How are your anxiety levels?
I have to admit I am feeling stressed. Stressed with what Christmas might look like this year. Stressed about what church will look like around Christmas and into the new year. Stressed about when covid might arrive and what that will mean for life? Stressed by some of the media reporting around mandates and lockdowns and everything. I think I spend way too much time reading stuff about this and feeling anxious.
I was talking to someone last week who referred to an article she had read about covid trauma. We are all suffering covid trauma in some form or other. Life has changed. Church has changed. It will keep changing. It’s too unpredictable. It’s too uncertain.
Then layered over all that are issues like climate change and COP26 and the big question of “can we change our ways and give hope to future generations?” Time is running out. More stress. More anxiety. More trauma.
Stress and anxiety are natural reactions to all we are experiencing. So lets acknowledge that and care for ourselves and each other.
But I also wonder if what I give my attention to just adds to all this?
Short answer – probably
2. Mark
So, I wonder, as I said in the theme, In what ways had God blown our minds this year?
3. Hairy Note to Finish On.
This week’s reading feels like a hairy note to finish on. Despite Jesus deriding the temple and Jerusalem elite for their corruption and which had led to the impoverishment of so many, including the widow who gave all she had, Jesus’ disciples seem overawed at Herod’s spectacular rebuild of the temple. And by all accounts it was something to behold. The vision held in these impressive stones still shaped how they saw the reign of God and they kept missing what Jesus was pointing to. Their minds were yet to be blown.
So, Mark records Jesus warning against placing too much store in all this. It is generally thought that Mark’s gospel was written during or shortly after the Jewish rebellion at 66-70 CE. For all who followed the way of Christ, Jewish and Gentile, this was a traumatic time that felt like the end of time. There certainties were failing, and they were left grasping for what all this meant and how to respond. Mark’s Jesus uses standard apocalyptic style to warn against certainty beyond God. Instead, we are to be open to all that God is up to, making new futures possible.
And here we are in our own time of unravelling. As I reflect on these words, I am aware of the time I have given to Covid news, good and bad, and my resulting stress. I can’t ignore it, that is just as bad. But I wonder how I am leaving space to experience God’s creative life-giving presence in all this, and to take part in the new future being made possible.
4. Women of Faith
Today we hear the story of Hannah, whose song we recited as our psalm. An unimportant woman who could not bear a son and was mocked for it. A faithful woman who prayed in ways that confused Eli the priest. She wasn’t rich or powerful. She is a key point in the story of God’s people and God’s work through the covenants renewing humanity and restoring creation.
Her first born son is Samuel, the prophet, judge, and kingmaker. It is her faithfulness and courage that allows her to offer her child him as a nazirite forever.
And as we approach Advent and Christmas, she acts as a forerunner to both Elizabeth and Mary. Mary’s song will echo Hannah’s, declaring the unique holiness of God that can be depended on at all times. The God who restores just situations and works through the poor and disregarded.
Hannah is not alone. The story of God’s people often hinges on the faithful actions of women. Moses’s mother and sister. Esther, Naomi, and Ruth. Elizabeth and Mary. Mary Magdalene.
And down the centuries seemingly unimportant women have continued to play significant roles in the story of God’s reign of justice and peace.
Within the Franciscan tradition over the centuries a lot has been said about Francis, and much less about Clare. But over the last 60 or so years since Vatican 2 there has been a lot of work done on this young woman who defied the powerful men in her powerful family and joined Francis living the gospel. She supported Francis in his darkest days and helped him write his rule. She held to that vision defying bishops, cardinals and popes and wrote her own rule – the first woman to write a rule for a religious community. It is only now that her pivotal role in the Franciscan story is being told. But God’s creative life-giving presence through her was always there.
Over the next week we will remember the first Third Order Franciscan Saint, Elizabeth of Hungary – who despite her high birth and being married into the ruling family of the Holy Roman Empire, lived a radical lifestyle of God’s compassion and love for all in the Spirit of Francis. It is a deeply sad story, but one that inspires still today
5. Conclusion
As we struggle with all that is happening in our world today
- What is it that we currently pay attention to?
- What are the stories we might pay attention to?
- Where do we see God’s creative life-giving presence?
- What blow our minds and gives hope?
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