Lent 3 - Year C

The beauty of the invitational words of the prophet Isaiah, speaking for God : come, listen, see, seek, call, forsake, return.

It's a fascinating business, having ordinands in the parish; those in training for ordination. Part of the fascination, of course, is sensing their discomfort in being the opening line for a sermon on Lent 3....

The fascination is in a sense the "L" plate experience of having inquiring minds asking ... why do you do it so? and thus having to reflect on my, our, practices. There is also the additional positive of actually learning more myself, ourselves, in the process. It reminds me very much of when our three children went for their driving licences. My knowledge of the road rules went through a steep new learning curve as the student became the teacher.... "you can't turn right across a continuous white line mum"; and "where is your indicator mum, you're coming out of a roundabout". I didn't like to share with my children that there were actually no roundabouts when I went for my licence.

Back to the ordinands...a continual fascinating conversation evolves around our discussions of the prayerbook and liturgy... and what you can and cannot do. St Francis College is returning to a very disciplined approach to the prayerbook, and Archbishop Phillip is most insistent on adherence to prayerbook liturgy. His reasoning, which is very sound as is his want, is that continual wandering from accepted practice means, in time, that accepted practice actually becomes replaced. And we Anglicans are "people of the book" - the book being the prayerbook.

However, our prayerbook contains a wonderful flexibility - in the form of rubrics, the instructions and guidelines that accompany all liturgy And it is these that create fascinating conversations. Because at the heart of the rubric debate is the little word ... "may". And when you see that word in the service directions, there is also the realisation that it means "may not". In other words, there is a choice.
For example: at the beginning of the Holy Communion service... "a psalm, hymn, or anthem may be sung". The Gloria may be omitted during Lent... actually, when I went through the service again in writing this homily, there are mays everywhere! "Silence may be kept"....."the minister may say".

The reverse understanding is also there, of course. When may is not used, then you know whatever follows must be included. There is also a handy page, right at the back of the full prayerbook, with the Holy Communion Outline Order; those things that must be there. (p 813 my dear ordinands).

Those things that must be there. In their learning immersion of the Holy Eucharist, the ordinands are not learning the rules of this sacramental liturgy. Rather, the formed shape that holds the right theology so that our practice is "right practice". Therein also an obedience to the order of the church; an obedience respecting tradition and scripture - and with enough reason to celebrate the inclusion of the may in the Anglican Prayerbook.

That tension between may and must in their learning is really at the heart of all learning and experience in Christian life; in fact of any life that adheres to some framework of belief and values. It seems to me we spend our lives discerning, working out, the things that are "musts" in our lives in tension with the things that are "may or may nots".

Depending on our upbringing, our formation into adulthood, we make decisions that could include... I must work for a living; I must care for my family in this way; I must treat all people in this way. We create our own rules, don't we, not only for our own life but how we include others in our life.

How do we find the "musts" as Christians? What are the compulsories in God's eyes? It would seem we come to strong opinions about what God sees as important - we image God into rules all the time, with suspect reasoning sometimes.. I wonder if we think God has boxes to tick as we discern the "musts of God"... Examples I have heard and witnessed:

God says... you must go to church at 9am on a Sunday.
God says... you must not have sex before marriage.
God says... you must forgive everyone, no matter what.
God says... you must sit in the same pew every week.
God says... you must pray at 8.30am every morning in that chair.....

I am being a little facetious, I know. But it is very tempting to create our own God rules without thinking through what God really wants. This was really the crux of the issue Jesus had with the church of his day, and in people's lives. He encountered closed minds and hearts in attitude to what God was really like because human frameworks had been constructed around God's intended and intentional relationship with God's people.

This whole ‘must' reflection is relevant today because of the Gospel. There it is, Jesus said it. "I must be on my way.." Now if we can unpack his understanding of ‘must' then perhaps we will be closer to creating the right musts in our own lives! And if we look at the most wonderful invitational images from Isaiah of who God may be in our lives, perhaps we will again get closer to what God really wants us to respond to.

In this season of Lent, the ‘must' Jesus utters at this point in his journey is crucial in our own journey to Easter. His ‘must' is about entering Jerusalem, the place he knows he will be killed. Those who love him have asked him not to go; those who respect him have warned him as well - we witness the Pharisees caution... "Herod wants to kill you." But he must go on; and why? In obedience to God, who has made an everlasting covenant with his people based on love - and that is what Isaiah has written. In Christ's obedience is his own adherence to the tradition of the scriptures which he knows he must fulfil. "Yet today, tomorrow and the next day I must be on my way...."

Christ's obedience in God was complete and perfect; and we must do likewise. Well, we must if we want to be right with God. And we want to, don't we? And we fail, don't we? Because it always feels as though we have a choice... and we do. We always have the choice to live in a life of ‘may' or ‘must'. The love of a wise parent is to be invitational into obedience, rather than forcing it upon us. God's covenant is of mutual relationship - the only part that is compulsory is that it is there. God's love is not conditional on anything we may or may not do; we may respond to it - and when we do, we know we must continue in that relationship for there is no other way to live life!

Isaiah gives us the rubrics of God's invitation into knowing that love; we listen to the rhythm of this prophet's discernment of journeying with God.... seven invitational words ... Come, listen, see, seek, call, forsake, return. There is a wonderful sense of cyclical living that creates a loving call to obedience to live God's way.

In the same way we receive, we must also give. That is the must of our lives. God so loved us and so loves us; we must also so love whom God loves. That is God's only rubric actually; and it is not an optional "may".

"Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live."

The Lord be with you.