Sermon: Feast of St Simon & St Jude

Preacher:

Date:

Sunday 28th October 2012

Service:

Cathedral Eucharist

Famous double acts often bring famous catchphrases. Laurel and Hardy: ‘Here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me in to’; Morecombe and Wise: ‘tea Ern?’; The two Ronnies: ‘And it’s goodnight from him and its goodnight from me’. Famous double acts have brought great discoveries and achievements: Crick and Watson, Armstrong and Aldrin.

And today’s double act is St Simon and St Jude, two of the twelve disciples called by Jesus. They are not perhaps ‘A’-list saints, with famous catchphrases or achievements, but they are the ones we honour today, giving thanks for our fellowship with them within the Body of Christ and for the one who, like us, they followed: Jesus Christ.

Simon we understand to have been a Zealot, that is, part of a group that sought the coming of the Kingdom of God in violent or dramatic ways. That all changed on meeting Jesus the one who heralded the Kingdom in a totally different way, a way of intimacy with our heavenly Father, a way that is founded on healing, peace and generosity of spirit.

Jude is even more, to coin a phrase, obscure. He is almost certainly also known as Thaddeaus and it is said that because his name, Jude, so similar to that of Judas, the one who betrayed Jesus, he was rarely invoked in asking the saints for the prayers, only being invoked late as a last resort; hence being patron saint of hopeless causes. But more than, Jude gives us the Epistle of Jude, one chapter long, a robust appeal to believers to hold firm to the faith entrusted to the saints, and which says too, most encouragingly,

But you, beloved, build yourselves up on your most holy faith; pray in the Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God; look forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. (Jude 20-22)

This double act, Simon and Jude, stands as a sign today of that faith entrusted to them and the first saints, handed on to us in our day. Sometimes that faith has been tenuously handed on, at other times confidently or stridently, but always preciously and generously: what we call ‘tradition’. But tradition is not the same as traditionalism. As someone once defined it: traditionalism is the dead faith of living people; tradition is the living faith handed on by those who are now dead.

That is what we call the apostolic faith, of which Bishops are called to be custodians and faithful handers-on. Faithfulness to the apostolic tradition is what gives us the ability to tackle the questions of today that the apostles themselves could never have envisaged. And that is rooted in the relationship of the creature made in the image and likeness of God gazing into the face of Jesus Christ - a face that beholds us lovingly - and seeing in that face our divine and human potential. The apostolic tradition is nothing if it is not held in fidelity to the Gospel of Jesus Christ: as written in the psalm, ‘”Come”, my heart says, “seek his face!” Your face, LORD, do I seek’ (Psalm 27.8)

So we celebrate a double act. Honouring Simon and Jude together reminds us that we are never alone in the communion of saints, living and departed. We find ourselves in relationship all the time. Being part of the Body of Christ is profoundly personal, but never private: and we find our personhood in relationship with others. We learn so much of who we are in relation to another person. When that is a loving relationship, wife and husband, child and parent, friend and friend, then we begin to see the face of Christ in them and they in us. And that spills out from what could be a selfish relationship to bring in others; seeing Christ in them and them seeing Christ in us. When we relate apparently privately to God then we are exposed to the great danger of creating God in our own image; another person can, lovingly, prick the bubble of that illusion.

It’s good to be part of a double act in mission: witnessing to the Kingdom of God, living out the commission to ‘Go in peace to love and serve the Lord’. We don’t go alone. In St Luke’s gospel, remember, Jesus sent the seventy out in pairs (Luke 10.1-20). This is about fidning partners in mission, and being open to one another.

The church puts us, through baptism, into relationship with others and with Christ, in the love, joy and peace of the Holy Spirit.  In the Creed, which we will say shortly, we associate the work of the Sprit with, amongst other things, the life of the Church, the focus, but not exclusive locus, of the activity of the Spirit in our world. The twelve, of which Simon and Jude were a part, are the foundation stones of the Church: the very number of them echoes the twelve tribes of Israel, the sons of Jacob; in other words Joseph and his brothers. The widespread expectation at the time of Jesus was that the coming Messiah would re-establish the twelve tribes as his kingdom was heralded, as if it were to be a concrete political entity, the sort of thing Simon as a Zealot longed for. The twelve presage the church, founded by Christ, which is itself a concrete social-political entity, but also a herald and manifestation of the Kingdom of God in our midst, the aspiration and hope of how human society renewed and transfigured might be.

So there is a huge amount to reflect on in this double act, what they bring as individuals, how they prompt us to value the insights of others in our life of faith, the relationships we forge in the Body of Christ as brothers and sisters, those who hear his word, eat together at his Table, sent out in mission.

May we be mutually encouraging, together searching in wisdom, face to face, exchanging peace. In that space between to human persons there is space for the presence of Christ to dwell, to mediate and guide, so that rich conversations lead us close to the Father.

So in Jude’s own words:

Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

(Jude 24-25)