St Oran’s and Dunbeg Mission Sunday
The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee
Murdoch MacKenzie
3 June 2012
Matthew 6:33 'But seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
Today is Trinity Sunday when we remember and celebrate God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, God the Holy Trinity. Appropriately it is also Mission Sunday when we remember the world-wide mission of the the Trinity through the Church here on earth and throughout eternity. Equally appropriately it is also the Sunday designated for us to remember the Diamond Jubilee of the Queen’s reign. And so we can say with great conviction and with her Majesty the Queen: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Glory be to God most high.”
And yet - ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.’ These words were uttered by King Henry IVth in Shakespeare’s play of that name. Henry IVth reigned right at the end of the 14th century and into the beginning of the 15th century. He was the ninth King of England from the House of Plantagenet having deposed his cousin Richard II, and through his mother and John of Gaunt, was the first from the Lancaster branch which later in the century was to enter into the Wars of the Roses. So Shakespeare knew a thing or two when he put these words into the king’s mouth: ‘Uneasy lies the head which wears a crown.’
But what about – the Queen? What does she feel as she sails down the River Thames today? Easy or uneasy? Perhaps we will never know as she doesn’t say much and yet 60 years is a very long time in which to have borne the brunt of Britain’s ups and downs together with 12 Prime Ministers as well as those of the 32 Commonwealth countries of which she is still the head of state. In fact if you take them all together she has had 156 Prime Ministers in total. In Britain itself only George III had more – 14 in all, whilst Queen Victoria only had 10 and she reigned for 63 years and 216 days. Today there are more than two billion people in 54 countries across six continents who can count themselves as citizens of the Commonwealth. Two billion people! Commonwealth Day is held on the second Monday in March each year and is marked by a multi-faith service in Westminster Abbey normally attended by the Queen, who delivers an address which is broadcast throughout the whole wide world – a kind of world mission in itself! My observation, having lived in India and elsewhere, is that it is valued and celebrated much more in other parts of the world than here in the UK. Indeed, here in Scotland, there seems to be some kind of question as to whether we want to have the Queen at all?
The prophet Samuel was faced with a similar question as we read in 1 Samuel chapter 8. “When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as Israel’s leaders. The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second was Abijah, and they served at Beersheba. But his sons did not follow his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice. So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.”
Of course as we know, Saul was chosen, but he proved very problematic and was followed by David as we read in 1 Samuel 16: ‘The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king.”’ Thus Bethlehem, not Jerusalem was the city of David and it was through the lineage of David that the Messiah would be born. Once in royal David’s city stood a lowly cattle shed, where a mother laid her baby in a manger for his bed. Jesus, in the words of Dorothy L. Sayers, Jesus was the Man born to be King. In Revelation 11:15 we read: “The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign forever and ever.”
Thus it is no wonder that Jesus’ main theme in his preaching and teaching was about the Kingdom of God or as Matthew prefers - The Kingdom of heaven. As in the Lord’s Prayer “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. Yet as recorded in John 18:36 Jesus said: “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” Thus speaks the Prince of Peace. In Luke 16:16 Jesus says: “The law and the prophets were until John. Since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached.”
And this good news of the kingdom is often told by Jesus in parables beginning ‘The kingdom of God is like..’ and these parables mean radical change here on earth, often accompanied by judgment. They are not just nice fairy stories. They are for real. The kingdom of God is like a man who sowed good seed in his field, the kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed, like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, like treasure hidden in a field, like a merchant in search of fine pearls, like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard, like a king who gave a marriage feast for his son, like 10 maidens who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom, parables of the kingdom told by Jesus and there are others such as the Rich Man and Lazarus, the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, the Great Banquet, the Lost Sheep, the Rich Fool, the Lost Coin, the Talents, the man building a tower, the unjust steward, the Pharisee and the Publican, the sheep and the goats and so many more.
It is sometimes said that Jesus preached the Kingdom and all that happened was the Church. But the Church is not meant to be ineffectual. It is meant to be at the sharp end of radical change, to be a suffering Church seeking first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness. Jesus says in Luke: “Blessed are you poor for yours is the kingdom of God.” (Luke 6:20) and in Matthew: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake , for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Is that our picture of the Church? Is that what we think we are called to here in St Oran’s/Dunbeg?
Jesus was able to preach about the Kingdom because he was and is, and is to come - the king! As he was being born three kings or Magi came to ask Herod the king: ‘Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?’ And there in the City of David they offered their gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. Meanwhile out on the hillside with the shepherds a multitude of angels appeared singing: ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill among all people.’ Thus was fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: ‘For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the goverment shall be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called ”Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” “ Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David, and over his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and for evermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.”
But what does it mean to seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness? What does it mean for us? What did it mean for Jesus? What does it mean for - the Queen? Surely for Jesus it meant seeking God’s will in all things, the will of his Father in heaven. He says: ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ (Matthew 6:10). ‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord.” shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he or she who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.’ (Matthew 7:21) In his testing in the desert the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him: ‘To you I will give all this authority and their glory; for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you then will worship me it shall all be yours.’ And Jesus answered him: ‘It is written: “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’” (Luke 4:5-8)
This is what it means to seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, because when you do that, all these other things will be given to you as well. The whole wide world – for Jesus. On this Mission Sunday, on this Trinity Sunday we remember all that. The great commission at the end of Matthew’s gospel: ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’ (Matthew 28:18) The same commission given to them at his Ascension as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles: ‘But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.’ (Acts 1:8) and that might just include Connel not to mention a barge on the River Thames this afternoon.
And yet - ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.’ Particularly if that crown is a crown of thorns. St John writes in his Gospel: ‘Then Pilate took Jesus and scourged him. And the soldiers plaited a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and arrayed him in a purple robe; they came up to him saying: “Hail, King of the Jews!” Uneasy indeed lies the head that wears a crown of thorns, the thorns and thistles resulting from the sin of Adam and Eve mentioned in Genesis chapter 3 – the Fall - and in Genesis 22 and verse 13 when Abraham looked about, and spied a ram caught by its horns in the thorns of a thicket, and went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering in place of his son. Now here was Jesus wearing that crown of thorns symbolising the sin of the world – the whole wide world.
‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness – is this what it means? – being nailed to a cross and lifted high?
But Pilate also wrote a title and put it on the cross. It read: ‘Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews’ and it was written in Hebrew and in Latin and in Greek so that the whole wide world might understand what was happening. The chief priests then said to Pilate: ‘Do not write “The King of the Jews” but “This man said: ‘I am King of the Jews.’” But Pilate answered in the famous words: “What I have written I have written.”
Equally famous perhaps is the expression NO CROSS, NO CROWN which has been widely used since William Penn, founder of the Quaker colony which became Pennsylvania, wrote his tract NO CROSS, NO CROWN which was published in London in 1669.
We began this service by singing Psalm 24 ‘Ye gates lift up your heads on high, ye doors that last for aye, be lifted up that so the King of glory enter may.” Scholars suggest that it was written for the occasion when the Ark of the Covenant was taken up to Mount Zion by King David. It also encapsulates the meaning of the Palm Sunday procession when Jesus comes up to Jerusalem fulfilling the prophesy of Zechariah: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.” (Zechariah 9:9-10). Thus Jesus comes for the first time riding on a lowly donkey. But Jesus comes, and comes again, and at the second coming, in contrast, he will return in power and great glory riding on a majestic white horse as we read in Revelation chapter 19 verses 11 and following. As we read in 1 Peter chapter 5 and verse 1 First must come “Christ’s sufferings . . . and then the glory to be revealed”. In other words: ‘No cross. No crown’.
This is what it means to seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness because as Jesus said: "If anyone would come after me, let them deny themself and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever would save their life will lose it; and whoever loses their life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit anyone, to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? For what can anyone give in return for their life? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him or her will the Son of man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.
This applies as much to the Queen as to each one of us. It applies to Christians throughout the whole wide world. Like Jesus we do live in an adulterous and sinful generation but we have a king who rides a donkey, who tells us not to be anxious, to look at the birds of the air, to consider the lilies, to seek first his kingdom and above all his righteousness, knowing that all the other things will be ours as well. If we can each do that we will indeed be what’s called world mission. In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Murdoch MacKenzie
The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee
Murdoch MacKenzie
3 June 2012
Matthew 6:33 'But seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
Today is Trinity Sunday when we remember and celebrate God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, God the Holy Trinity. Appropriately it is also Mission Sunday when we remember the world-wide mission of the the Trinity through the Church here on earth and throughout eternity. Equally appropriately it is also the Sunday designated for us to remember the Diamond Jubilee of the Queen’s reign. And so we can say with great conviction and with her Majesty the Queen: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Glory be to God most high.”
And yet - ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.’ These words were uttered by King Henry IVth in Shakespeare’s play of that name. Henry IVth reigned right at the end of the 14th century and into the beginning of the 15th century. He was the ninth King of England from the House of Plantagenet having deposed his cousin Richard II, and through his mother and John of Gaunt, was the first from the Lancaster branch which later in the century was to enter into the Wars of the Roses. So Shakespeare knew a thing or two when he put these words into the king’s mouth: ‘Uneasy lies the head which wears a crown.’
But what about – the Queen? What does she feel as she sails down the River Thames today? Easy or uneasy? Perhaps we will never know as she doesn’t say much and yet 60 years is a very long time in which to have borne the brunt of Britain’s ups and downs together with 12 Prime Ministers as well as those of the 32 Commonwealth countries of which she is still the head of state. In fact if you take them all together she has had 156 Prime Ministers in total. In Britain itself only George III had more – 14 in all, whilst Queen Victoria only had 10 and she reigned for 63 years and 216 days. Today there are more than two billion people in 54 countries across six continents who can count themselves as citizens of the Commonwealth. Two billion people! Commonwealth Day is held on the second Monday in March each year and is marked by a multi-faith service in Westminster Abbey normally attended by the Queen, who delivers an address which is broadcast throughout the whole wide world – a kind of world mission in itself! My observation, having lived in India and elsewhere, is that it is valued and celebrated much more in other parts of the world than here in the UK. Indeed, here in Scotland, there seems to be some kind of question as to whether we want to have the Queen at all?
The prophet Samuel was faced with a similar question as we read in 1 Samuel chapter 8. “When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as Israel’s leaders. The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second was Abijah, and they served at Beersheba. But his sons did not follow his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice. So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.”
Of course as we know, Saul was chosen, but he proved very problematic and was followed by David as we read in 1 Samuel 16: ‘The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king.”’ Thus Bethlehem, not Jerusalem was the city of David and it was through the lineage of David that the Messiah would be born. Once in royal David’s city stood a lowly cattle shed, where a mother laid her baby in a manger for his bed. Jesus, in the words of Dorothy L. Sayers, Jesus was the Man born to be King. In Revelation 11:15 we read: “The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign forever and ever.”
Thus it is no wonder that Jesus’ main theme in his preaching and teaching was about the Kingdom of God or as Matthew prefers - The Kingdom of heaven. As in the Lord’s Prayer “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. Yet as recorded in John 18:36 Jesus said: “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” Thus speaks the Prince of Peace. In Luke 16:16 Jesus says: “The law and the prophets were until John. Since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached.”
And this good news of the kingdom is often told by Jesus in parables beginning ‘The kingdom of God is like..’ and these parables mean radical change here on earth, often accompanied by judgment. They are not just nice fairy stories. They are for real. The kingdom of God is like a man who sowed good seed in his field, the kingdom of God is like a grain of mustard seed, like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, like treasure hidden in a field, like a merchant in search of fine pearls, like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard, like a king who gave a marriage feast for his son, like 10 maidens who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom, parables of the kingdom told by Jesus and there are others such as the Rich Man and Lazarus, the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, the Great Banquet, the Lost Sheep, the Rich Fool, the Lost Coin, the Talents, the man building a tower, the unjust steward, the Pharisee and the Publican, the sheep and the goats and so many more.
It is sometimes said that Jesus preached the Kingdom and all that happened was the Church. But the Church is not meant to be ineffectual. It is meant to be at the sharp end of radical change, to be a suffering Church seeking first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness. Jesus says in Luke: “Blessed are you poor for yours is the kingdom of God.” (Luke 6:20) and in Matthew: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake , for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Is that our picture of the Church? Is that what we think we are called to here in St Oran’s/Dunbeg?
Jesus was able to preach about the Kingdom because he was and is, and is to come - the king! As he was being born three kings or Magi came to ask Herod the king: ‘Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?’ And there in the City of David they offered their gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. Meanwhile out on the hillside with the shepherds a multitude of angels appeared singing: ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill among all people.’ Thus was fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: ‘For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the goverment shall be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called ”Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” “ Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David, and over his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and for evermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.”
But what does it mean to seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness? What does it mean for us? What did it mean for Jesus? What does it mean for - the Queen? Surely for Jesus it meant seeking God’s will in all things, the will of his Father in heaven. He says: ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ (Matthew 6:10). ‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord.” shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he or she who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.’ (Matthew 7:21) In his testing in the desert the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him: ‘To you I will give all this authority and their glory; for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you then will worship me it shall all be yours.’ And Jesus answered him: ‘It is written: “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’” (Luke 4:5-8)
This is what it means to seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, because when you do that, all these other things will be given to you as well. The whole wide world – for Jesus. On this Mission Sunday, on this Trinity Sunday we remember all that. The great commission at the end of Matthew’s gospel: ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’ (Matthew 28:18) The same commission given to them at his Ascension as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles: ‘But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.’ (Acts 1:8) and that might just include Connel not to mention a barge on the River Thames this afternoon.
And yet - ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.’ Particularly if that crown is a crown of thorns. St John writes in his Gospel: ‘Then Pilate took Jesus and scourged him. And the soldiers plaited a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and arrayed him in a purple robe; they came up to him saying: “Hail, King of the Jews!” Uneasy indeed lies the head that wears a crown of thorns, the thorns and thistles resulting from the sin of Adam and Eve mentioned in Genesis chapter 3 – the Fall - and in Genesis 22 and verse 13 when Abraham looked about, and spied a ram caught by its horns in the thorns of a thicket, and went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering in place of his son. Now here was Jesus wearing that crown of thorns symbolising the sin of the world – the whole wide world.
‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness – is this what it means? – being nailed to a cross and lifted high?
But Pilate also wrote a title and put it on the cross. It read: ‘Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews’ and it was written in Hebrew and in Latin and in Greek so that the whole wide world might understand what was happening. The chief priests then said to Pilate: ‘Do not write “The King of the Jews” but “This man said: ‘I am King of the Jews.’” But Pilate answered in the famous words: “What I have written I have written.”
Equally famous perhaps is the expression NO CROSS, NO CROWN which has been widely used since William Penn, founder of the Quaker colony which became Pennsylvania, wrote his tract NO CROSS, NO CROWN which was published in London in 1669.
We began this service by singing Psalm 24 ‘Ye gates lift up your heads on high, ye doors that last for aye, be lifted up that so the King of glory enter may.” Scholars suggest that it was written for the occasion when the Ark of the Covenant was taken up to Mount Zion by King David. It also encapsulates the meaning of the Palm Sunday procession when Jesus comes up to Jerusalem fulfilling the prophesy of Zechariah: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass. I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall command peace to the nations; his dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth.” (Zechariah 9:9-10). Thus Jesus comes for the first time riding on a lowly donkey. But Jesus comes, and comes again, and at the second coming, in contrast, he will return in power and great glory riding on a majestic white horse as we read in Revelation chapter 19 verses 11 and following. As we read in 1 Peter chapter 5 and verse 1 First must come “Christ’s sufferings . . . and then the glory to be revealed”. In other words: ‘No cross. No crown’.
This is what it means to seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness because as Jesus said: "If anyone would come after me, let them deny themself and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever would save their life will lose it; and whoever loses their life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit anyone, to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? For what can anyone give in return for their life? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him or her will the Son of man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.
This applies as much to the Queen as to each one of us. It applies to Christians throughout the whole wide world. Like Jesus we do live in an adulterous and sinful generation but we have a king who rides a donkey, who tells us not to be anxious, to look at the birds of the air, to consider the lilies, to seek first his kingdom and above all his righteousness, knowing that all the other things will be ours as well. If we can each do that we will indeed be what’s called world mission. In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Murdoch MacKenzie
