Sermon 21st July 2024
Ps. 23; Ephesians 2.11-22; Mark 6.30-34, 53-56
Catherine Gibson
The importance of the physicality of the Incarnation
Jesus’ disciples have just returned from their first independent mission, doing his work and empowered by his Spirit. They’re longing to tell him all about it, and they’re also exhausted by their labours. Jesus understands this and tries to give them an opportunity for rest and the sharing of their stories. But he himself is at the height of his popularity, and the crowds flock to him and follow him around wherever he goes. They seek immediate gratification: entertainment and healing. Like sheep, they are only concerned about their immediate needs: they have no long-term plans. You’ll notice that a number of verses have been omitted from this “Markan sandwich”: the filling that has been left out is the Feeding of the Five Thousand. But Jesus doesn’t leave them “like sheep without a shepherd”: he sets out to teach them, so that they can be human beings instead of sheep.
This passage reminds us that Jesus’ sufferings were not limited to his Passion. He also suffered weariness, hunger, and the stress of being continually interrupted, with few opportunities for privacy.
Ephesians emphasises the physicality of the way in which our salvation was achieved: “In his flesh [Christ] has made both groups into one,” Paul says. Because Jesus came in the flesh, the hostility that divides us is broken down, and we can become known and friendly to one another. Because he came in the flesh, we can together be built into the place where God lives on earth, where he may be worshipped and loved.
This week, I’ve been finding out about a project initiated by the actor Michael Sheen and the National Theatre of Wales in Port Talbot over the Easter Weekend of 2011. It was filmed and is available as a DVD entitled The Gospel of Us, and BBC Wales made a documentary about it which can be found on YouTube under the title The Passion of Port Talbot. Sheen wanted to do something for his home-town, and although he isn’t a Christian believer, he is strongly attracted to the person of Christ and to the Passion story. This, therefore, is a secular take on the story, but a profound and deeply moving one, which had a great impact on the local community. Working with a writer, a director and creative team, he devised an event that involved many sections of the community as performers, and many more as involved spectators. Practically every organisation in the town was drawn in, and aspects of the play were based on individual memories recorded during the extensive research which preceded the writing.
It is set in Port Talbot slightly in the future. The Christ-figure (played by Sheen) is a teacher who has gone missing, suffering from amnesia. At dawn on Good Friday, he is given a sort of baptism in the sea in a mysterious religious ceremony. That afternoon, crowds are welcomed to an open-air civic event. Local groups provide entertainments, and then the Guest of Honour arrives. He is the Chairman of a company known as ICU (which is reminiscent of Big Brother, but truly seeing the other person is an important theme throughout the play).This company is the equivalent of the Roman occupation. In the 1960s a flyover was constructed which entailed the demolition of many dwellings in the centre of Port Talbot. It was known as “The Overpass”. ICU is now planning a further development, which they are calling “The Passover Project”; and while presenting it as a development which will benefit the town, the Chairman makes it clear that no opposition will be tolerated.
He arrives well-protected by police and security guards (played by members of a rugby club). His speech is interrupted by a gunman high up on a nearby building, targeting a woman in the middle of the crowd, who is wearing a suicide vest. He is protesting against ICU, and the woman is his unwilling victim. Suddenly the Teacher emerges from the crowd who have opened up a space around the woman, and talks to her quietly, while the security guards disarm the gunman.
Over the next two days, the Teacher has various encounters, and with his quiet, gentle leadership, acquires a group of close followers. Saturday evening sees the Last Supper Party in the Social Club, where ticket-holders can enjoy a feast and entertainment, which is relayed to those outside on large screens. The Teacher enters into the fun, but also shares a meal with his close friends. His mother makes another attempt to get him to recognise her and remember who he is.
The festivities are broken up by ICU’s guards, and the Teacher escapes to the top of a skip in courtyard behind the Social Club. Here he is overcome with the sense that the crisis has arrived, and he receives strength and confirmation in his chosen path from a builder working high on a scaffolding, who addresses him as “Son”. He’s then arrested by the guards and led away to a kangaroo Court. By now, the crowd, which numbered about five thousand at the beginning, has grown to around twelve thousand. The Chairman gives the crowd an apparent choice between saving either the gunman or the Teacher, but the result has been rigged, and the Teacher is handed over to the guards “to be made an example”. After he has been rough-handled and “crowned”, he is led through the streets to a grassy mound near the waterfront. On the way, a group of women, led by his mother, tend his wounds while others play soothing music on hand-bells. On the cross, his mind suddenly clears, and he shouts out a litany of memories of Port Talbot. When he is taken down, his mother mourns over his body; but suddenly there’s a shout from among the crowd, who part to reveal the figure of the Teacher: he declares, “It is finished! It’s beginning!”
People of all kinds, who were interviewed for the documentary over that weekend, spoke warmly and wonderingly of how the project had brought the whole community together in a way they had never experienced before. Some were Christians, some were not, but all were profoundly affected by the event.
Paul writes to the Ephesians about Jesus’ Incarnation breaking down the barriers between people. The people of Port Talbot were touched anew by the physical representation of Jesus, and his relevance to their own lives and concerns. We can all too easily separate religion from the rest of our life, and people often try to insist that we do this. But unless our Christian faith affects and involves the whole of our existence, and we recognise all parts of our lives (and those of other people) as having a bearing on our faith, we shall fall short of the Humanity God intends, and miss that “abundance of life” he offers us in this worldly state.