Tag: 00 O’Donovan_Oliver

A sermon on 1 Kings 13.3

Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion; shout aloud, daughter of Jerusalem. See, your king comes to you, his cause won, his victory gained, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt the foal of a donkey. (Zechariah 9:9)

And as it was written in the prophecy of Zechariah, so it occurred. The king came to Jerusalem, and the crowds that accompanied him shouted and sang with joy. Here was a ruler whose mount was not the military charger but the domestic pack-animal, a ruler with a popular bearing with whom they could identify, a ruler with a pacific programme, whose authority conferred by God would put an end to conflict and free their life from fear. And so they did identify with him, and so they did become fearless, strewing branches in his path and running confidently alongside. But then came a turn to this happy scene not written in the prophecy of Zechariah, the turn that disconcerts us today and every Palm Sunday. “Behold, your king comes!” declared the prophet, and “This is the king of the Jews!” was written over his cross a week later. How could the triumph of divine authority give place in so short a time to its defeat?

They went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. (Mark 16:8)

This is the last, and most extraordinary, of the silences of Saint Mark’s Gospel, which is a book full of silences. “See that you say nothing to anyone!” So Jesus warned the leper he had healed; and when he cured the deaf-mute he told all who were present to tell nobody. It was the same for those who saw Jairus’ daughter raised from the dead; and the blind man of Bethsaida was sent home with his sight restored, but not allowed so much as a courtesy call in the village he had begged in, in case he talked. Jesus silenced the demons who said they knew who he was. Only Legion was instructed to speak. He silenced Simon Peter when he said “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”; and finally, most strikingly, he was silent himself, when Caiaphas and Pilate tried to interrogate him.

“It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. …We will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” (Acts 6:4)

So the apostles spoke, defining their own wholly important and not to be neglected ministry over against the other ministry of the church, also wholly important and not to be neglected, the ministry of the deacons. Ministry has a twofold shape, and many of us engaged in ministry are constantly aware of the fact as we experience a kind of tug-of-war on our attention. Our traditional threefold pattern, of bishops, priests and deacons grows out of this twofold pattern. The bishop, as Hooker quaintly put it, is entrusted with a “chiefty in government” among those who minister the word and sacrament. He is to guide their ministry and take responsibility for it. So it is that the ministry for which we have come to present Tom Wright to the Archbishop today is in one respect not new to him, for he has exercised it as a priest and theologian, and in another respect quite new.